Discoveries from Sweden World Cinema

If I give birth, I will certainly be punished and lose my reputation. If I don't, then I may be punished, too. And also lose my reputation.

The King is about to visit a small town, and everyone is excited to prepare for the event. Everyone but Egon Karlsson, vice municipal commissioner and and member of the Republican Association.

A portrait of a meddahatt orchestra of Algeria--women musicians who come together to play strictly for other women, during celebrations of engagements, weddings, and circumcisions. Surprisingly, since men and women are usually not allowed to mix socially, this orchestra also includes two men, an openly gay couple. Includes interviews and performances of the orchestra.

A politically motivated dramatic short film from Social Democrats ahead of the 1952 elections.

A candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize is brutally stabbed to death in central Stockholm just after a meeting with two lawyers from the war tribunal in The Hague. One of the witnesses worked with Alex when she was in the Middle East.

"Colorful Raftsmen" - The three brothers Nils, Lars and Ivar are members of a raftsmen team. Ivar feels that he does not really belong there, he prefers a little poaching andante a lot of flirting with women.

Amber belongs to a queer generation which no longer wants society to dictate their identity. The teenagers proudly inhabit a spectrum of fluid identities and master their first loves and losses.

Jim Jansson is a woodcarver who gets retired.

In an idyllic small town unpleasant things happen. A pastor gets upset by the wife walking on hot coals, his former wife's grave is desecrated and his son's girlfriend suddenly disappears. What is happening?

The successful glass artist Stellan Sylvester ends up in the hospital after a car accident. He looks back at his life and finds it empty and meaningless. He falls in love with the nurse Marta but when he finds out that she engaged life turns out to be even more meaningless.

A bunch of young people travel to Gotland on their vacation - partying expected 24/7. But they get into trouble - with both the local population and a criminal gang.

Olof Koskela, the only son is driven from home when he wants to marry the wrong girl. He takes a job as a floater. His reputation as a womanizer goes far and wide. When he meets the proud Kyllikki, he enters into a bet to defeat the mighty rapids standing on a log.

Michelle Moreau notice a man replacing a battery in a race car. She is chased by the man but escapes. The race car belongs to Bobby Flyckt and Michelle gets a lift with him through Europe.

The North of Sweden. The action takes place in the 1960s and revolves around the families Cervieng and Ljungh, the night clerk upstairs and the inherent lecturer Mr Lampa.

In 1972 the green wave sweeps over Sweden, guiding people back to nature away from the cities. Events range from escalated food prices in Skärholmen, the escape of fifteen prisoners from Kumlaanstalten, Sweden's first hijacking, and an Olympic year in Munich, marked by both Swedish success and tragedy with the attack on 11 Israeli athletes. The year also sees emigration to Australia, refugee intake from Idi Amin's Uganda, sports achievements, music releases, and daily life routines throughout various Swedish towns.

A story about the unorthodox life of the groundbreaking Swedish journalist and author Ester Blenda Nordström (1891-1948). In a very restrictive time for women she travelled the world, always returning to her secret love, Carin, in Stockholm.

An engineer and an actor, two extremely similar men, change their identity with each other.

The film is based on a story by Guy de Maupausant. The story details several years in the life of convent-bred Angela (Mona Mårtenson) who leaves her convent in Italy to go live with her aunt Peppina (K. Swanstrom), whose husband Giambastista wants to take advantage of her. She flees and takes refuge with the painter Frank Wood ( handsome Louis Lerch) and winds up in a romance with Wood. Alas, Wood is already married, and when Martenson finds out, she returns to the convent in disgrace. On the verge of shutting herself off from the world and taking her vows as a nun, the heroine once again crosses the path of Wood, who is now free to marry her. Sandra Milowanoff has a big scene where she commits suicide on discovering that her husband no longer loves her.

The Whalers (original title: Valfangare) is a filmed record of the final whaling expedition in the Arctic before the outbreak of WW2. Only partly a documentary, the film is able to accommodate a dramatic throughline, concerning the redemption of wastrelly millionaire's son Allan Blom (Allan Bohlin). Pressed into service on the expedition, Allan shows he's a true son of Scandanavia through his courageous actions on the high seas, and even wins the hand of heroine Sonja (Tutta Rolf) in the bargain. While the whaling scenes are both exciting and exhillarating, the sequence in which a whale carcass is stripped and gutted may not appeal to everyone in the audience. Originally filmed in 1939 in Swedish and Norwegian, The Whalers was helpfully fitted out with English subtitles for its 1942 American run.

The tiny village in the far north of Sweden called Ensamheten (Solitude) has sixteen inhabitants. They all share an unusual passion - armwrestling.

The time of change is on the threshold for fifty-three-year-old Kaj, who recently has started to question his authority as Sensei. After a workplace accident, Kaj is forced to find a way out of the past and a way into the present.

A barber creams his customer carelessly and pulls a strop attached to the customer's throat like a snare. He then stirs wildly as the customer's head is hit, get scratched, and finally rushes up out of the chair. A fight arises.

Åsa-Nisse gets a chance to win 10.000 SEK in the biggest game show on Swedish TV.

Out clubbing with friends, a woman acts according to the roles and rules she's been taught only to discover that different ones may apply in Anette Sidor's incisive look at gender norms and modern mores.

Journalists Johan Persson and Martin Schibbye talk about the horrendous days in the desert, rail executions and false terror charges. They were arrested before they could report on the violence in the closed state of Ogaden. But the Ethiopian regime failed to silence them. With the help of never-before-seen video material and testimonies smuggled out of the country by a high ranking official, the whole story can finally be told. About Johan and Martin. About the violence in Ogaden. And about the prisoners of dictatorship.

Kalle Blomkvist and his friends intervene when a professor and his little son Rasmus are kidnapped.

Kristin visits her gynecologist for a check-up. With two failed IVF attempts behind her, she longs for a child more than ever. Life, Lust & Longing tells Kristins story through a series of flashbacks. Starting at the age of 4, we follow her life through various stages right up to the present day.

The Stranger - two children are taken, A new officer joins the team, a young girl is strangled and a death via traffic accident turns out to be more. In the meantime, Patrick and Erica plan a wedding.

The film follows four newly retired people who travel to Italy to help Eva sell an olive farm she inherited. But during their sunny stay, new thoughts arise about life, freedom and the dreams they have yet to realize. The trip becomes a chance to reevaluate what really matters when you reach the second half of life.

Swedish-Canadian television special hosted by Swedish artist Ted Gärdestad and Canadian artist Lisa Hartt, where they presented artists and groups from their respective countries, sang some of their own songs and performed a couple of duets.

Hjalmar Björklund and his daughter Margit runs a second-hand bookshop in a small Swedish town.

The story is wacky – a gypsy is cursed by her father, so that she has to deny her illegitimate son in order for him to have a successful life. She gives him to a well-to-do lady who has lost her own child. Later, he has grown up to be a politician who wants to become the foreign minister. He doesn’t know that his real mother is the famous Madame de Thebes, the fortuneteller who all politicians make sure to visit! This information falls into the hands of a rival, who tries to use it to ruin his career. Meanwhile, the rival’s attractive daughter is attacked by a ruffian and needs to be rescued… There are a lot of striking images in this film. You can see the beauty of them even if the state of the print is far from perfect. The Norwegian actress Ragna Wettergreen gives a haunting performance as Madame de Thebes, with wisdom and regret – and quite a few melodramatic gestures. Understatement was not the norm in those days.

The young Jönsson gang's plan to steal "millions of filmisar" faces problem after problem before uncovering something much greater.

Stockholm, February 1968. A petty theft spirals when Sebbe and Adam accidentally destroy the pocket watch meant for an unknown client. Desperate, they turn to watchmaker Karl for an urgent repair, but their anxiety soon shifts to a darker fear. Confined to Karl’s cramped workshop, distrust and rising paranoia transform their predicament into a claustrophobic psychological chamber play. As midnight nears, buried truths and old revenge surface.

"Rolling Sea" - After a longer stay at the hospital, the young Martin comes to Gothenburg and notice that his fiancee Sonja has met another man.

A lieutenant in love with a woman cheat on his money and forces him to forge a bill of exchange. He kills the creditor and flees abroad. A few years later he gets a job as a stagehand. By chance he run into the woman.

John Andersson is the action hero who saves the world from evil villains.

Anita Haglöf was Ingmar Bergman's housekeeper for eight years, in his home at Karlaplan in Stockholm and at Fårö. She constantly accused him of harassment in her diary, but didn't quit the job.

Crackoholic , by Jonas Paulsson and Mikael Widerberg, is quite different to most other climbing movies. The style is somewhat similar to that of the classic Hard Grit, in that it provides a historical perspective to the climbing of the area. In this case Bohusln on the Swedish west coast. We also get to meet and listen to some of the climbers who, through the decades, have been important to the development, of difficulty as well as ethics, and hear their thoughts on climbing and risk. As would be expected, these thoughts range from profound to cliche. Of course, there's also a lot of climbing, from moderates to FA's of cutting edge "death" routes.

The year is 1961 and Ingmar Bergman is making a movie. While planted on the scene as apprentice to Bergman, Vilgot Sjöman (director, I Am Curious–Yellow, 1967), suggests to Swedish Television that they take the opportunity to record with the acclaimed director. In August, Sjöman and the television crew begin to capture what would become a comprehensive five-part documentary on the making of Winter Light, offering views of script development, set construction and lighting, rehearsals and editing, as well as intimate conversations with Bergman and members of his cast and crew. Footage from the film’s Swedish premiere delivers immediate audience reactions and the critics’ reviews the following day.

Comedy about a cab driver who is a bigamist.

5-year-old Robert lives in a newly built suburban area where all houses look exactly the same.

On tour through Sweden, the all-girl rock 'n' roll band "Rock Cats" suddenly find themselves trapped in no-man's land when their tour-bus breaks down. Soon they get to meet "the Bleeder", an insane beast of a man whose sole interest is to kill them all off, one by one. The hunt is on…

In the 1980s there was a punk band in Stockholm who put out one single, got torn apart by local music critics and went away. 35 years later they are contacted by a music label from New York interested in their music.

A shoemaker purchases a lottery note with two friends, and hides it from his wife for safekeeping. He soon learns that their ticket has the winning numbers but is afraid to tell his colleagues it is missing. Based on the play by Algot Sandberg.

Ola is a pop idol, touring with his band in Sweden in the mid-60's. Julia is a young actress in a traveling theatre company. They meet and fall in love.

Disa's husband has found himself a new love and a new future, while Disa has found herself in an unsatisfactory life. But one day a chatty father with seven children appearance, an uncommunicative patient at Disa's hostipal has begun to open up, and a new martial arts teacher has begun teaching in this small town in Dalarna.

Fredrik is a happy man; he has a girlfriend he loves, a business running smoothely and he is going to be a father. But his happiness proves false. At a party, his girlfriend declares that she will leave him for her true love. Frederik is distraught. But his biological clock has started ticking, and his desire for a child is overwhelming. At an adoption agency he meets Milla, a woman who has also been treated unfairly by love. Could Milla be the answer to Frederik's dream?

The Tale of the Banished tells the story of the young hobbit Frodo, who flees the Shire when his mother's cousin, Bilbo, disappears. A small outcast group sets off on an adventure, a journey filled with adventure and horror. Known as Sweden's most famous Lord of the Rings dub. The movie had 250,000 views after only 2 months. 3.6 million views as of June 4, 2015.

Josephine has all her life been told that her Peruvian aunt Augusta died in an armed struggle for the rights of the poor. As an adult Josefin decides to find out the truth about the legendary Augusta.

The story about Karlsson's six boys, who makes mischief in the fictional town of Östköping.

McMurphy pretends to be mad to avoid a prison sentence but existence in the mental hospital is not what he imagined.

Mika and Tesfay. She: a photographer. He: a musician. Both up-and-coming. The first love. But an invisible conflict, an unnamable shame, stirs between their sheets. An insidious power game is in play, with its rules changing like music beats at the parties in Gothenburg, Stockholm and Ibiza. Behind closed doors and beautifying filters lies a raw reality where Mika’s control over her mind and body is at stake. But Mika rips apart relationship prejudices and explores what really makes our pulses quicken in matters of the modern heart.

Dora moves in with the artist Erik to become his model. Three men from a Masonic Order pretends to be interested in his art, but Dora is their real focus.

A very old lady has lost her way in a city and a distinguished gentleman decides to follow her home.

Jonas goes with a tremendous speed with his horse over a country road in Hälsingland. Because of this speed Birgit Ljusnar, who is along the road picking blueberries, falls. Jonas stops and helps her up. He gives Birgit two Swedish crowns for the pain and the suffering. Furthermore, he promises her a job on the farm.