Stockholm Film Festival celebrates its 30th Anniversary by paying tribute to French cinema. The festival will open with Marriage Story by Noah Baumbach, with Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver in the leading roles. This year’s Spotlight is “Mafia – organised crime” and it’s the festival’s most equal program to date, with 40 percent female directors. The festival will take place 6-17 November, screening 150 films from over 60 countries.
A quick dive into this year’s film harvest shows new works from established names such as Rian Johnson, Alejando Amenábar and Takashi Miike. The festival’s darling Xavier Dolan also returns to Stockholm with his latest feature film Matthias & Maxime. In an anniversary year like this, Stockholm Film Festival presents pearls such as the Palme d’Or winner Parasite by Bong Joon-ho, Sundance winners One child Nation and Monos, Berlin’s Silver Bear winner By the Grace of God by François Ozon, and the Swedish premier of the Venice winner About the Endlessness by Sweden’s own Roy Andersson.
Over 25 films from France are screened, including titles such as France’s Oscar submission Les Misèrables by Ladj Ly, The Specials by Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano, Atlantics by Mati Diop. The recipient of the 2019 Stockholm Visionary Award is also a French director, Céline Sciamma, who will visit the festival with her latest film Portrait of a Lady on Fire, starring Stockholm Film Festival guest, Adèle Haenel. Céline Sciamma will accept the Bronze Horse at the film’s Scandinavian premiere, 4:00 pm, November 9th at Skandia in Stockholm. Watch the film’s trailer below.
– We’re very proud to present some of the best films of the year at our 30th Anniversary. We have more female film makers than ever before and shed light on our time where organised crime has become part of our everyday life, said Festival Director, Git Scheynius, on press conference.
This year’s Spotlight films deal with the theme “Mafia – organised crime”. They all depict the time we live in today and how organised crime has taken over our world – and the big screen. This year’s Spotlight is shining on films that dare to seek beyond the crime genre’s generally tiresome conventions. These stories are deeper and dig into the daily life of the mafia. Titles include Sea of Shadows by Richard Ladkani, Piranhas, by Claudio Giovannesi, based on the world-famous Gomorrah-author Roberto Saviano’s novel The Piranhas: The Boy Bosses of Naples. And perhaps one the festival’s biggest highlights: Just 6.5, a film that show us Iran like we have never seen it on screen before. The film visits a land ravaged by a drug epidemic that is close to a system collapse, with prisons overflowing of addicts and a constantly growing poverty. The film broke the audience record in its home country with 2.4 million movie theatre visitors, with 2019 Stockholm Achievement Award recipient, Payman Maadi starring in the leading role. He will accept the Bronze Horse at the Nordic premiere of Just 6.5, 6:00 pm, November 14th at Skandia in Stockholm.
A selection of films that will be presented during the festival in November includes titles such as The Souvenir by Joanna Hogg, The Farewell by Lulu Wang, The Report by Scott Z. Burns, Ema by Pablo Larraín, Beanpole by Kantemir Balagov, Synonyms by Nadav Lapid, and The Lighthouse by Robert Eggers.
The 2019 Stockholm Lifetime Achievement Award is presented to one of the world’s most prominent actors of all time: Max von Sydow. Known for his roles in film classics such as The Seventh Seal, The Emigrants and The Exorcist. Max von Sydow welcomed the Stockholm Film Festival with a fine letter ahead of its very first edition, in this letter he congratulated the festival for its initiative and expressed his will to be part of it in any way, and so he became the festival’s honorary chairman.
Tickets to the festival can be purchased here: www.stockholmfilmfestival.se/en.
All images used with authorisation and facilitated by the Stockholm International Film Festival.
