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STOCKHOLM 2018

The Stockholm International Film Festival announces its official programme

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- The 29th edition of the annual gathering will kick off on 7 November, while the 2018 Stockholm Visionary Award will be presented to Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi

The Stockholm International Film Festival announces its official programme
X&Y by Anna Odell

The Stockholm International Film Festival, founded in 1990, will this year open with the world premiere of Anna Odell’s X&Y. Already known for 2013’s The Reunion [+see also:
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, and aided by the participation of Mikael Persbrandt and Trine Dyrholm, the Swedish artist promises to examine masculine and feminine identities in an entirely new way. Sales for the movie are handled by New Europe Film Sales. “With more than one-third of the directors in the line-up being first-timers and 80% of the helmers in our new Discovery section being female, there is no doubt that an old and well-worn era is on the verge of rapid change, and is being replaced by new names ready to be discovered. This year, the festival has a ratio of 39% female directors on board, a record-breaking figure,” festival director Git Scheynius told Cineuropa.

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The selection, consisting of 159 movies from 60 countries, will also include such celebrated titles as Wildlife by Paul Dano, Capernaum [+see also:
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by Nadine Labaki, Cold War [+see also:
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Q&A: Pawel Pawlikowski
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by Paweł Pawlikowski and Skate Kitchen by Crystal Moselle, while this year’s closing film is The Favourite [+see also:
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by Yorgos Lanthimos, who received the Stockholm Visionary Award in 2015. “The Spotlight at this year’s festival is Democracy in Danger, a highly topical matter these days, and includes films such as Sergei Loznitsa’s Donbass [+see also:
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interview: Sergei Loznitsa
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and Vitaly Mansky’s Putin’s Witnesses [+see also:
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interview: Vitaly Mansky
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,” added Scheynius. “Donbass is also competing for this year’s prestigious Impact Award, which we have proudly arranged with the City of Stockholm since 2015. Also competing are Cold Sweat by Soheil Beiraghi, Los Silencios [+see also:
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by Beatriz Seigner, Ray & Liz [+see also:
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interview: Richard Billingham
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by Richard Billingham, Birds of Passage [+see also:
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by Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra, Core of the World [+see also:
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by Natalya Meshchaninova, Manta Ray [+see also:
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by Phuttiphong Aroonpheng and Vox Lux by Brady Corbet. The winning director receives an award designed by Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei, as well as a cash prize of one million SEK – making it one of the world’s biggest film prizes.” 

The recipient of the 2018 Stockholm Visionary Award is Iranian director-screenwriter Asghar Farhadi, who will also present his latest film, Everybody Knows [+see also:
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. The two-time Oscar-winning director will accept the Bronze Horse and participate in a Face2Face conversation. “Farhadi’s masterful and sensitive cinematographic language makes him a visionary filmmaker and elevates him to the rank of international master of cinema,” opines Scheynius. Canadian filmmaker Mary Harron, seen recently at the Venice premiere of her surprising take on the Manson murders, Charlie Says, will be honoured with this year’s Stockholm Lifetime Achievement Award 22 years after her debut, I Shot Andy Warhol, was presented at the festival in 1996, and the recipient of the 2018 Stockholm Achievement Award is actress Gunnel Lindblom, known for her collaborations with Ingmar Bergman. The awards ceremony will take place in conjunction with the screening of Margarethe von Trotta’s documentary Searching for Ingmar Bergman [+see also:
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However, the festival will also find time to celebrate new faces – namely, the nominees for Stockholm Rising Star, who are: Zahraa Aldoujaili and Yara Aliadotter for Amateurs [+see also:
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, Christoffer Nordenrot for The Unthinkable, Fanni Metelius for The Heart [+see also:
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, Alba August for Becoming Astrid [+see also:
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interview: Alba August
interview: Pernille Fischer Christensen
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and Agnes Lindström Bolmgren for The Cake General. Finally, thanks to the 1 Km Film short-film scholarship, one young director will get the opportunity to make a short that will be screened at next year’s festival. 

The Stockholm International Film Festival will wrap on 18 November.

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