Nova & Alice, premiering on the 13th of September, is a music-filled drama set both on and off stage, centering on two mismatched pop artists forced to go on a joint summer tour.
Alice, played by Hedda Stiernstedt, is an established Mello star with a large audience, but she has never written her own songs and is starting to lose her shine. Nova, played by Josefin Asplund, is a rising and credible artist whose career is skyrocketing, but her personal life is chaos. The clash is inevitable—both musically and personally. As their tour bus moves between Swedish summer concert venues, everything is at stake, and neither of them realizes they are heading for a summer that changes everything for them both.
The soundtrack to the movie is made up of original music written by an impressive group of contemporary songwriters including Molly Sandén, Elias Kapari, First Aid Kit, Stella Explorer, Lisa Howard, Jörgen Elofsson, Fredrik Kempe and Anton Hård af Segerstad.
Hedda and Josefin are actually doing the singing themselves, having taken song lessons as well as guitar lessons in preparation for their roles. At the autumn presentation of the seasons’ fresh new Swedish movies at Filmhuset (pictured above), Hedda noted it was quite a challenge. She said she was basically crying in the studio when she was recording the first demo. She felt the pressure of singing songs written by some of the best singers in Sweden, while she had not really been singing before at all. Just try singing a First Aid Kit song yourself and get back to me, she joked.
The movie is directed by Emma Bucht and produced by Lena Rehnberg of StellaNova Film, known for classic Swedish music films such as Monica Z and Ted – För kärlekens skull.
Catch the movie at a cinema near you from the 13th September!
Text and featured photo: Nina Uddin
