Contemporary Swedish films in this program focus on more or less intriguing and interesting, complex and provocative stories about women and their destinies, both real and fictional. Unlike most world cinematographies, in which women and their stories are largely neglected in front of as well as behind camera, but primarily in the director’s chair, (the diligent statisticians from the website Indiewire found out that the percentage of female directors in America amounts to less than 10 %, while in Europe the situation is slightly better - from 2003 to 2012 16 female directors directed 16 % of films), in Scandinavian countries gender equality in this area is much more present and visible. It is not just the case that many protagonists of the most successful Swedish and Danish TV series of the last decade - Borgen, The Killing, The Bridge, Thicker Than Water and The Legacy – are all energetic and peculiar women. In addition, the most picturesque literary heroine Lisbeth Salander from Larsson’s trilogy Millennium is the same type. Moreover, in Scandinavian countries, especially in Sweden, women achieve higher “visibility” in the director’s chair. Ever since Ann Serner became the head of the Swedish Film Institute, things have become even better in terms of female presence. Until that time, men directed, depending on the year, about 70 to 90 of yearly film production. It was Serner who names the gender inequality in her country’s cinematography as a catastrophe and set a goal for herself: to raise the percentage of films supported by the Institute that are directed by women to 50 percent. The result of this policy was that the Institute soon adopted the rule of gender parity thanks to which women of Swedish film are sometimes even more interesting authors than or at least as interesting as their male colleagues. „We simply stopped talking and started acting“, said Serner. The result of this practice was the opening of the film business to female authors. Thus now even producers are aware that they will receive more of the Institute’s support if they hire female authors or devote the stories of their films to women.

Of course, the imposition of gender equality at any cost and with the aim of satisfying statistics may be counterproductive. At the moment maybe it partly is such; some Swedish filmmakers complain that the gender mark became a problem and even a stumbling block meaning that it might be more important than the quality of the project as a whole. However, if we were to judge based on the films in this program, there is currently a gender balance between quantity and quality in Sweden.

The program opens with the excellent documentary Astrid directed by Kristine Lindström, whose outstanding documentary Palme was shown within the Swedish program in Tuškanac in 2013. This time the film is a summary of the author’s three-part documentary series about the famous Swedish writer Astrid Lindgren, Pipi Longstocking’s mother as well as the author of more than 30 books for children and several film screenplays. When faced with the issue of presenting the already well-known writer from a fresh perspective, Lindström decided to focus on the historical context of Lindgren’s life and left her literature somewhat in the background.  The historical context covers the time from her birth in Småland in 1907, across the years she spent working in a local newspaper and the birth of her son at the age of 18, to moving to Stockholm, new job as a stenographer and beginning and development of her writing career. The writer’s daughter Karin Nyman, literary agent Kirsten Kvint, writer Margaret Strömstedt, illustrator Marit Törnqvist and many others talk about the author.

The protagonist of the director Ronnie Sandahl’s film Underdog is the 23-year old Dino who cannot find work in her country and decides to move to Oslo. There she finds herself in a whirl of temporary jobs, financial insecurity, growing dissatisfaction and wild late-night parties during which she tries to vent from her daily problems. Drama Young Sophie Bell directed and co-written by Amanda Adolfsson also deals with the daily lives of young girls. The heroines are best friends Sophie and Alice who have graduated from high-school and are dreaming of a better life. They plan to move to Berlin but as expected, their dreams soon evaporate. Nevertheless, Alice disappears in Berlin and Sophie starts looking for her. This is the beginning of an adventure that will change her life.

Teen musical drama We Are the Best! by Lukas Moodysson is the only film in this program that has been previously shown in Croatia. It is a humorous, witty, emotional and elegantly directed and effectively designed and visually reconstructed story about three thirteen-year-old girls who decide to form a punk band in 1982. The girls are different; for example one of them likes classical music and is quite introverted. As in his previous film Show Me Love, Moodysson demonstrates how well he knows and understands young people, their feelings, thoughts and yearnings. Fantasy horror-drama The Circle directed and co-written by Levan Akin is a free adaptation of the first part of the trilogy for young readers by the Swedish writer Sara Bergmark Elfgren. It is a story about a group of young witches, influenced by Harry Potter, The Hunger Games and the once cult TV series Buffy, The Vampire Slayer. Finally John Olsson’s drama Viskan Miracles deals with tense relations between estranged family members who live on opposite banks of a river. They have been in a fight for nearly twenty years caused by inheritance dispute and social class antagonism. Now, middle-aged Malin decides to cross the river and visit her father in law Halvar. (Josip Grozdanić)