Sweden has two films shortlisted for the Oscars, the documentary Searching for Sugar Man by Malik Bendjelloul, and Goran Kapetanovic’s short film Kiruna-Kigali. This is the first time ever that a Swedish documentary has qualified for the shortlist.
Searching for Sugar Man
Searching for Sugar Man has made it through to the final 15 in the competition from a starting field of 126. With international box office figures already in excess of 420,000, the film is about the American singer Sixto Rodriguez who never really made it in his homeland, but who sold more records than The Rolling Stones in South Africa. Produced by Malik Bendjelloul, Peter Schildt and Simon Chinn (who also produced the Oscar-winning documentary Man on Wire), the film was granted production funding by the Swedish Film Institute’s former documentary film commissioner, Lars G. Lindström.
Kiruna-Kigali
Kiruna-Kigali has gone through to the final eleven films from a starting line-up of 125 titles. The film follows Malika, an 18-year-old girl in Rwanda who is about to give birth. The baby is the wrong way round, and this presents a danger for Malika’s life in a village without an adult population since the civil war. Meanwhile, in faraway Sweden, a woman’s waters have just broken. She is the 39-year-old Eva. Taking place in two seemingly completely different parts of the world, the film weaves their two stories together. Produced by Helena Danielsson and Goran Kapetanovic for Hepp Film AB, the film was granted production funding by the Swedish Film Institute’s commissioner for short films, Andra Lasmanis.
The nominations will be announced on 10 January 2013, and the Oscars ceremony will take place on 24 February.
