Films supported by the Göteborg Film Festival in competition in Cannes

This year four directors supported by the Göteborg Film Festival Fund will be presenting films in the Cannes Film Festivals official programme.

One of the twenty films competing for this year’s Palme d’Or in Cannes is Summer Palace by the Chinese director Lou Ye, who has previously visited the Göteborg Film Festival with his award winning Sozhou he, the very first film to be completed with financial support from the Göteborg Film Festival Fund.

When Paz Encina presents her first film in Cannes she is not only making her debut as a feature film director, it is also the very first feature film project coming out of Paraguay in 50 years. The Göteborg Film Festival Fund has been involved in the progress of Hamaca Paraguaya since 2004 when the project was granted a development support.
- Thanks to the contribution from the fund I was able to finish the script, find the right locations and present the project to producers. The Göteborg Film Festival has been a great support, especially since they were the first to beleve in the project, says Paz Encina.

Djamshed Usmanov was very successful with his film Angel on the Right in Cannes in 2002 and the following year in Göteborg. Now his latest film To Get To Heaven First You Have to Die, about the hopeless existence of a small time smuggler in Tajikistan is also to be screened at the Cannes Film Festival. The project was supported with a post production grant of 300 000 SEK from the Göteborg Film Festival Fund in April this year and like Hamaca Paraguaya it is screened in Un Certain Regard. The screenings will be an important step towards an international audicence for this film produced and shoot in Tajikistan.

To Get To Heaven First You Have to Die as well as Hamaca Paraguaya will be screened at the upcoming Göteborg Film Festival in 2007. Where the audience will also get a chance to see Garin Nugroho’s Indonesian film Requiem from Java . The film is part of a series of six films supported by, among others, the city of Vienna and produced in connection with the New Crowned Hope Festival and Vienna’s celebration of Mozart in 2006. Garin Nugroho’s film is an adaptation of one of the stories of the Indian epic Ramayana containing songs and music from Java. The project was supported with a post production grant in the Göteborg Film Festival Fund’s spring selection round. In Cannes this year director Garin Nugroho will be presenting Serambi, about a group of people in the Ache province trying to deal with their lives after the tsunami.

Since seven years the Göteborg Film Festival in cooperation with the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) manage the Göteborg Film Festival Fund that supports film makers living and working in countries in transition. During the next year a total amount of four million SEK (aprox. 450 000 €) will be distributed as development support, postproduction support and contributions towards training, education and organization of technical facilities in the film area.

Since 1998 the Göteborg Film Festival Fund have supported 46 different films from over 25 countries all over the world.

For further information please contact Åsa Larsson, +46 31-339 30 12, +46 707-61 38 01 or asa.larsson@filmfestival.org.