Discoveries from Sweden World Cinema

Hokus Pokus is a work about the constant cycles of life and death, about the 4 seasons, the sense of coming to life and a philosophical skeleton that builds a portal to enter a parallel reality. If you were thinking of becoming a wizard, perhaps you have been one all along.

A meditation on early Swedish anime fandom and coming of age at the turn of the millennium. Memories from a first love in bleeding video colors, the last analogue revolution before the world was fully digitized.

About the taxi driver Els-Beth "Bettan" Aspås, 84 years old. A tough woman from the village of Härkmeri in Ostrobothnia who traveled to Sweden in 1950 and chose a career in the extremely male-dominated taxi industry.

Stefan Fernholm would throw the discus farther than anyone else and win glory and money and Olympic gold, and he was prepared to sacrifice everything to reach his goal. At the age of 37, he died at the kitchen table in Västerås.

Chile after the bloody coup d'état by the military junta in September 1973. Interviews at the Santiago stadium with relatives of people who were murdered or suspected of being supporters of the Popular Unity coalition, and with a comrade who managed to escape, demonstrate the brutal terror unleashed by the new rulers against all progressive forces. Shocking images and interviews taken during and in the days following the coup. Excellent in terms of the (visual) information it provides.

Olle Häger interviews former Army General Bo Westin who shares his thought during all the crises in the sixties.

With humor and wonder and to images that grow from morning to night, a seven-year-old girl talks about the world of adults.

An African, a Yugoslav, an American and a Scandinavian, each gives his own views on the work of building railways in Yugoslavia.

A documentary on young, drafted soldiers in military training in Gotland, Sweden.

Film about friendship and solidarity.

When a young girl seemingly returns to her childhood home, memories of her father are awakened, confusing time and space. We follow endless moments between a father and daughter, where the memories that come to mind reflect the absence of words. Only that which surrounds the silence is spoken and remembered. But who remembers whom?

On April 6 1974 ABBA changed the Swedish musical landscape from its core when winning Eurovision Song Contest. Exactly 50 years later their victory got celebrated by Swedish artists.

Documenting the urban environment of Gothenburg, Sweden.

Short poetic study around experiencing space.

The Gällivareduo Hooja and DJ Mårdhund went from a fun thing on the internet to becoming polers with the entire Swedish people in just one year. They have had audiences in arenas all over Sweden singing along to songs about fruit drinks and anthills.

At the dinner table, they discuss the everyday, while other, more challenging topics remain unspoken. The important thing is to be together for a while. Touching on life's changes and the relationship between a father and a son when the latter comes home to visit.

Ismail has become undocumented and lives on a secluded island where a small black lamb captures his heart, all while someone from his past haunts him. Black Sheep is a symbol-laden story about having one's destiny resting in someone else's hands.

In 1976, nuclear conflict in Europe leads to the fleeing of the Scandinavian population. About three years later, one boy, in the middle of it all, is lost. The boy is still active trying to find life while the time is running out.

First film adaption of Frans Hedberg's play.

A female barber is forced to recall a trauma, after being visited by a man.

Early film adaptation of the epic poem.

About working women in two factories, Malmö Strump Factory and Abba in Kungshamn, where the work is monotonous, stressful and very strenuous for the body.

In December 2001, SVT aired a documentary about the club Grunden Bois, a group of mentally disabled boys and girls who play football in Gothenburg. Now Kjell Kjellman has made another visit to the club to tell what has happened since then. Among other things, Jocke has become chairman in the club and he tells us how bowling can be dangerous.

Documentary about Senegalese novelist Aminata Sow Fall.

Jonas Dahlberg’s Three Rooms is an installation consisting of three large screens separated by gaps of 1.5-2 metres in a black, silent room. The three different rooms shown on the three screens are similarly lit, accommodating shadow and shade, similarly occupied by generic modern domestic objects and of a similar spatiality. The spectator cannot avoid the impression of seeing a living room, a dining room and a bedroom on the screens. During the course of twenty-six minutes the objects in the rooms dissolve, leaving only the lighting and the bare space. Objects which are thin disappear gradually. Other thicker objects whose mass is unevenly distributed involve a process of falling over and breaking before they, too, disappear. As the objects degrade the rooms seem transformed into landscapes of dissolution and finally we are left with a vacancy defined only by the light and the planes of the wall.

In 1982 the first case of HIV was discovered in Sweden. In Stockholm, 1982 we meet three men who tell the story of love, community, lust, shame and grief in the 80’s in Sweden, a time and place for queer people with a constant backdrop of death and loss.

Short art film with animations starting with a rhinoceros

Floating between Ireland, Spain, Chile, Sweden, France and Bangladesh over seven years, I Must Away follows four migrants who have each left home to rebuild their life abroad. Narrated by a series of letters from the director to his grandmother, the film is a kaleidoscopic vérité essay which disentangles roots, land and identity, and explores the unequal distribution of rights and privileges, in our age of migration.

Close portrayal of a Romani family living in Italy where fascism is on the rise.

An anxious writer struggles with his inability to write while hopelessly trying to counteract his writer's block with various methods.

Various curiosities in Stockholm.

To the images of awakening spring, a woman talks to a man. She reflects on his actions towards her. Who she was and who she has become. By saying good bye to what once was, she accepts her altered new self. But with anger of what was taken from her, she's determined to seek justice.

A humorous documentary about Ronny & Ragges (Peter Settman and Fredde Granberg) touring life. In the documentary, we get to know, among other things, the background to all their songs.

A myriad of pictures from the early to the late 1900s portraying the old Göteborg in the festival’s most frequently recurring staple and cherished program item.

An exploration of norms and expectations in the dance industry where traditional stereotypes are still present. The film takes us through a poetic experience of hungry dressing rooms, self-doubt and cracking bones.

The dog Leif's fate continues after his death.

If it is true that the joy of injury is the only truly true joy, then you can't have much more fun than this! We offer yet another perfect orgy of successful failures. It doesn't get any worse than the fact that some of the world's top football artists are offering this different kind of miss. How fun! Here we have fumbling goalkeepers, lost defenders and attacking players who simply can't score. Players who make the impossible possible in a completely astonishing way. If you didn't know it before, this is proof that reality almost always surpasses poetry. It would have been almost impossible to come up with all these imaginative variations on magnificent own goals, breakneck back passes and unimaginable free-kick misses. You just have to thank and accept it when football professionals suddenly look like full-blooded amateurs.

The truth about the true humanists. Evil wins as usual.

A film about bullying and the society. Based on a piece of Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

A crushed fly. An outline of organic forms, an illusory trip. (Filmform)

Boel decides to train her horse Tolof for a circus show, which turns out to be a more challenging process than anticipated.

Meet the Swedish reggae pioneers, enthusiasts and innovators in a musical journey from Peps Persson to Syster Sol. A unique film in the background about how Swedish reggae has developed and found its audience despite opposition from the media and authorities.