Seven from Sweden

Controversial documentaries, award-winning historical dramas and a childhood adventure are set to screen in the Swedish Film Film Festival this week in Bangkok.

Organised by the Embassy of Sweden, seven films will be shown at SFX the Emporium. They are the documentaries “Big Boys Gone Bananas!*” and “TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay Away from the Keyboard”, the biographical drama “The Last Sentence”, the historical drama “Call Girl”, the portrait of an ageing hedonist in “Avalon”, the children’s adventure “The Ice Dragon” and the coming-of-age yarn “Behind Blue Skies”.

The opener at 6 on Thursday is “Big Boys Gone Bananas!*”, a 2011 documentary about another documentary. Directed by Fredrik Gertten, it depicts his legal troubles after being sued by Dole for his 2009 film “Bananas!*”, which covered allegations relating to the fruit grower’s pesticide use at a plantation in Nicaragua.

Next up at 8 on Thursday is the 2012 drama “Call Girl”. Directed by Mikael Marcimain, it’s based on the “bordellharvan” political scandal of the 1970s, which linked prominent Swedish politicians to a prostitution ring that included underage girls. The story focuses on a delinquent girl who is sent to live in a juvenile home and is eventually recruited by the prostitution ring’s madame (Pernilla August). It received the Fipresci Discovery Prize at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival, the Silver Award at the Stockholm film fest and was nominated in 11 categories in Sweden’s Guldbagge Awards, including best film, director and screenplay, and won in four technical categories.

Friday commences with another documentary, “TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay Away from the Keyboard”. Screening at 6, it follows Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm, the founders of the Pirate Bay, the notorious torrent-tracking website. The movie was released legally and for free on the Pirate Bay and other BitTorrent sites, but, controversially, several Hollywood studios flexed their censorship muscles and pressured Google to remove any search links pointing to it.

“The Last Sentence”, showing at 8 on Friday and 1 on Saturday, is a biographical drama about Torgny Segerstedt, a Gothenburg newspaper editor whose criticism of Hitler and the Nazis ran counter to the Swedish government’s intentions of remaining neutral during World War II. Jesper Christensen stars as Segerstedt. Other cast members include Pernilla August, Bjorn Granath and Ulla Skoog, who won best supporting actress at last year’s Guldbagge Awards.

Sunday opens at 1 with “The Ice Dragon”, the 2012 adaptation of a children’s novel, depicting the adventure of 11-year-old Mik, a boy in search of a new home. Trekking across the snow-covered countryside, he learns about whales, fishing, friends and love while staying a step ahead of the authorities. It won for best visual effects at last year’s Guldbagge Awards.

At 6 on Sunday is “Avalon”, an acclaimed 2011 comedy-drama that won the International Critics Award at Toronto and scored Guldbagge Awards last year for best actor and supporting actor. Johannes Brost and Peter Carlberg star in the tale, which takes its inspiration from the hit Roxy Music song of the same name and follows a 60-year-old high-society man who is determined to party as if the ’80s never ended.

The festival closes with Sunday’s 8pm screening of the 2010 coming-of-age yarn “Behind Blue Skies”. Set during the 1970s, its stars Bill Skarsgard as a young man who takes a summer job at a Swedish resort hotel. He’s taken under the wing of the hotel manager (Peter Dalle), who mixes the lad up in various shady business deals.

 

THEY’RE ALL FREE