Programme revealed for Stockholm International Film Festival

The Stockholm International Film Festival will showcase 130 films from 50 countries in 2023, with a significant part of this year’s programme consisting of debutantes.

The festival will take place from 8-19 November and will kick off with the acclaimed film Poor Things directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, this year’s winner of the Golden Lion, who previously received Stockholm Film Festival’s top prize for the film Dogtooth (2007). Seven years later, he was awarded the Stockholm Visionary Award (2015). The main roles in Poor Things are played by Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, and notably, Willem Dafoe. Robbie Ryan BSC ISC is the film’s cinematographer.

“This year’s programme offers sharp contemporary analyses and plenty of humour,” said Beatrice Karlsson, programme director. “Many of the films showcase great originality, and the program is best described as a bit untamed. This year’s spotlight, “The Other Truth,” reflects the contemporary society’s uncertainty about what is real and what is not. In seven films, we get to follow a creative exploration of fake news, AI, and filter bubbles.”

This year’s Spotlight, ‘The Other Truth’, Under this slogan, the festival will highlight films that in various ways examine the blurred boundaries of reality in our highly technological age. What happens to the truth when images are constantly distorted and reinterpreted?

Here you’ll find Hello Dankness by the artist duo Soda Jerk, which mixes deep fake scenes from American cult movies with political satire. This year’s centrepiece film, The Beast by Bertrand Bonello, explores the boundary between human and machine. The documentary Total Trust portrays the Chinese government’s AI-driven surveillance system for its own citizens, while the film Citizen Sleuth examines true crime podcasts and their alleged hunt for the truth.

During the Stockholm International Film Festival, the Stockholm Achievement Award 2023 is presented to the actor and director Ethan Hawke. On November 10th, the film Wildcat, directed by Hawke, will have its Nordic premiere at Skandia, followed by an exclusive Face2Face.

The Stockholm Visionary Award 2023 goes to the French filmmaker, novelist, and auteur film professor Catherine Breillat. Alongside the screening of the film Last Summer there will be an exclusive Q&A with Catherine Breillat.

Other notable films to be showcased at the festival include Dream Scenario by Norwegian director Kristoffer Borgli, starring Nicolas Cage; Some Walk with Broken Shoes by Magnus Gertten, The Delinquents by Rodrigo Moren, The Holdovers by Alexander Payne, All of Us Strangers by Andrew Haigh.

As previously announced, the prestigious Stockholm Lifetime Achievement Award 2023 honours the legendary director, and film producer Ken Loach for his long and devoted service to the film industry. Ken Loach will visit the Skandia cinema in Stockholm to receive his honorary award and participate in an exclusive Face2Face event. Following this, the film The Old Oak will be screened.

The focus country of the year is the United Kingdom. Among the British films highlighted by the festival are How to Have Sex by Molly Manning, Poor Things by Yorgos Lanthimos, In Camera by Naqqash Khalid, All of Us Strangers by Andrew Haigh, and more.

This year, the Stockholm Film Festival will feature no fewer than 11 Oscar submissions:

• Io Capitano, directed by Matteo Garrone (Italy)
• Society of the Snow, directed by J.A Bayona (Spain)
• Slow, directed by Marija Kavtaradzé(Lithuania)
• The Breaking Ice, directed by Anthony Chen (Singapore)
• The Settlers, directed by Felipe Gálvez Haberle (Chile)
• Inshallah A Boy, directed by Amjad Al Rasheed (Jordan)
• 20 Days in Mariupol, directed by Mstyslav Chernov (Ukraine)
• Pictures of Ghosts, directed by Kleber Mendonca Filho (Brazil)
• The Delinquents, directed by Rodrigo Moreno (Argentina)
• The Teachers´ Lounge, directed by Ilker Catak (Germany)
• Shayda, directed by Noora Niasari (Australia)

Stockholm International Film Festival also has the honour of having the European premiere of The Curse. The series is produced by A24 and will be launched exclusively in the Nordics on SkyShowtime in early 2024, but on 16 November you will be able to see the first two episodes of the series at Stockholm International Film Festival. The series stars Oscar winner Emma Stone alongside Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie.