Once again Sweden has a strong presence at the world's biggest documentary festival, IDFA in Amsterdam. Five Swedish films are in competition from a total of nine due to screen at this year's festival, which runs from 19-29 November.
Beauty Refugee by Claudia Lisboa - in competition at IDFA.
Photo: Camilla Skagerström
The 2009 festival sees three Swedish films rubbing shoulders in the prestigious Silver Wolf Competition: Beauty Refugee by Claudia Lisboa, about the moral values of a family obsessed with cosmetic surgery, Erik Pauser's The Face of the Enemy, which looks at the Vietnamese people's own reactions to the Vietnam War, and I Dreamed about Pol Pot, by Julia Stanislawska and Michael Krotkiewski, about Cambodia and life after genocide. The student competition is set to include the festival circuit favourite Mr Governor, by Måns Månsson, which tracks the everyday life of Swedish politician Anders Björk. And Renzo Aneröd and Bo Harringer's I Don't Wanna Live This Life, a dark study of young people and the effects of the drug GHB, will screen in the children and young people's section, DOC U!
Other Swedish films at IDFA are Fredrik Gertten's politically sensitive Bananas!*, Bosse Lindquist's The Genius and the Boys, about Nobel Prize winner Carleton Gajdusek, the man who discovered Mad Cow Disease, and the critique of the Italian media Videocracy by Erik Gandini. Last but not least is Naked, by Tove Kjellmark, screening in the ParaDocs section, in which a surgeon carries out an operation on a soft toy panda.
Last year's IDFA saw the first prize, the Silver Cub, awarded to Swedish short film Slaves by Hanna Heilborn and David Aronowitsch.
For further information contact:
Sara Yamashita Rüster, Head of Documentaries, International Department, Swedish Film Institute
sara.ruster@sfi.se, +44 8 665 11 41