Carl International Film Festival presents programme for second festival edition

Today August 7, the programme of the second edition of Carl International Film Festival in Karlskrona Sweden is announced! This year the festival highlights democracy and cinema, young Swedish talents and the festival's newly launched competitive section for feature films from the Baltic Sea region. Six days with more than 40 screenings, events and seminars!

 – During this year's Carl International Film Festival we take a firm grip on the festival's values of openness, freedom and peace. In September we have an election in Sweden and we want to emphasize the importance of guarding our democratic values in a time where we can see those weakened all over the world, even in Europe and Sweden. We present a fantastic program with several seminars, films and other program items where we highlight this in various ways, Henrik JP Åkesson, Head of Festival.

With a creative and cinematic focus on the ten countries of the Baltic Sea region the festival presents premiere films, special screenings, director talks, open air screening, events and much more! 

Check out the festival programme HERE and the catalogue HERE

Ten feature films from the Baltic Sea countries with a strong narrative and cinematic language that go hand in hand with the festival's values of openness and freedom are presented in the Baltic Sea Competition where a number of international festival favorites are having their Swedish premieres.

In the programme we find Christian Petzold’s (Barbara, Phoenix) Transit, that premiered at Berlinale earlier this year. The film, based on Anna Sieghler's novel "Transit Visa" from 1942, tells the story about a young Jewish man trying to avoid German troops. The film takes place in a contemporary Marsaille where characters and the story shift between identities and epochs in a challanging Kafkaesque refugee drama that vastly binds together the present and past. In Elizaveta Stishova’s Suleiman Mountain, having its Nordic premiere in the programme, we reach Kyrgyzstan, where a holy mountain is at the heart of a strange triangular drama with amazing cinematography and magnificent environments.

Also presented in the competition is Olga Chajda’s debute feature Nina. In the film we meet Nina and Wojtek whose marriage has been paralyzed in their constant failure to become pregnant. They offer the young Magda to become surrogate mother for their child but it does not take long before Nina and Magda have fallen deeply in love with each other.

– Even though we are again struggling for freedom in Poland - in a broader sense, and because of this, our film is perceived as a political statement, it was always meant to be rather about one's personal freedom and being true to yourself. I'm happy that my debut film Nina will have its Nordic premiere at the Carl International Film Festival and will be thrilled to present the film in person, says Olga Chajdas.

The films will compete for the Director’s award and the Screenwriter’s award, followed by a cash prize of SEK 25 000 each. The winners are selected by a jury will be announced at an award ceremony on August 28.

All films in competition
A Moment in the Reeds (Finland, Mikko Makela)
Border (Sweden, Ali Abbasi)
Breathing into Marble (Lithuania, Giedrė Beinoriūtė)
Denmark (Denmark, Kasper Rune Larsen)
Foam at the Mouth (Latvia, Jänis Nords)
Going West (Norway, Henrik Martin Dahlsbakken)
Nina (Poland, Olga Chajdas)
Suleiman Mountain (Russia, Elizaveta Stishova)
The Manslayer / The Virgin / The Shadow (Estonia, Sulev Keedus)
Transit (Germany, Christian Petzold)

Read more about the films in competition here

Ali Abbasi's Border opens the second edition of Carl International Film Festival on August 24 and will be a part of the festival's Baltic Sea Competition. The film had its world premiere during Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, where it was awarded Best Film in the prestigious Un certain regard.

Ali Abbasis's second feature is a love story in the borderland between reality and fantasy. Border centers around the Swedish customs officer Tina, who with an almost sixth sense, can smell smugglers. When she encounters the mysterious Tore, her life turns upside down, and she slowly begins to understand herself and her background. The film, based on a short story by the Swedish author John Ajvide Lindqvist, is a dark modern fairy tale that mixes Nordic folklore with perspectives on how the society treats ”the other”, racism and social indifferences in the shape of a romantic drama never seen before on screen. The main cast consists of Eva Melander (Flocking, Sebbe) and Eero Milonoff (The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki).

Carl Film Forum, the festival's industry platform, is welcoming a number of organizations, funds and production companies from the Swedish, Baltic Sea and international film industry focusing on establishing new opportunities for international co-production, roads to financing film and development of regional funds and audiovisual media production as a way to nourish regional development.

Carl Film Forum programme highlights 2018

• A Swedish Production Rebate, a panel discussion on the report regarding a Swedish production rebate with Anna Serner, CEO of the Swedish Film Institute, Cecilia Magnusson from the Swedish Parliament and Tomas Eskilsson, Head of Strategy from Film i Väst. 
• In the seminar Attracting Film Productions from Hollywood and Asia to the Baltic Sea Region we have invited two eminent producers from outside of Europe to get their perspectives. Mike Macari is the Hollywood producer who found the Japanese original film Ringu and produced the american The Ring-trilogy. Yeonu Choi is a producer and Senior Vice President of Int'l Production from South Koreas leading entertainment studio CJ E&M.
• Don´t miss the chance to meet a number of key profile investors at Meet The Investors. Frank Bonn, Founding Partner and CEO of Nouvago Capital, Timo Argillander, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of IPR.VC and Johanna Karppinen, CEO of Nyland Film Fund will give an insight of what they are looking for and how to attract them to your project. Presented in collaboration with Southern Sweden Film Network.

The event is held August 28 at Dockside in Karlskrona in parallell to the festival.

Read more about the programme and make your accreditation today