Grand Slam at Stockholm Film Festival
by Michael Schorr

Michael Schorr's Schultze Gets the
Blues rode away with the "Stockholm Bronze Horse" and Best First
Feature Award at the 14th Stockholm International Film Festival, which ended
November 23. Schorr's film won in two other categories: Best Actor, Horst
Krause, and Best Screenplay. The story of a man who has spent his whole life in
a small town in Sachsen-Anhalt and travels to Louisiana, "for the ordinary
person this highly personal and very life-affirming film allows the audience to
fully relate to a great drama", said the Stockholm jury.

So-ri Moon in A Good Lawyer's Wife
took home the prize for Best Actress and Woo-hyeong Kim won for Best
Cinematography.

An eclectic festival of features, documentaries,
shorts and Swedish work, notable films dealt with teens, such as Gus Van Sant's
Elephant and Catherine Hardwicke's Thirteen.
Fifteen year old Hana Makhmalbaf's Joy of Madness was a unique documentary
on the making of sister Samira's film which won the jury prize at Cannes:
Five in the Afternoon, the first film to be made after the topple of
the Taliban - a story about an Afghanistan woman who wants to be the president.

David Lynch, Special Guest of Honor, Lifetime Achievement Award

David Lynch met with the public, revealed
anecdotes from his films, and setting rumors to rest. Lost Highway, for
example, was inspired by the fact that O.J.Simpson was able to smile at his
trial for murder , which helped Lynch to shape the forces of the film. He
admitted to shaving a mouse and that he doesn't make a penny off the
distribution of his films. The only picture he owns the rights to is Eraserhead.

Lynch is satisfied with the women roles
he's created but not Dune. A surprise to the festival audience was his
description of Transcendental Meditation, which he believes is based on sound
scientific principles that can help to achieve world harmony. He claimed his
next project will be a children's film.

Allusions of Lynch like iconography were
indeed evident in Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle, a series of films
about creation myths, and gender bending - shown non stop at one of the smaller
cinema venues. The single public screening was completely sold out,
demonstrating that avantgarde and experimental films compel at festivals.

Other awards went to:

BEST SHORT FILM

Wasp

DIPLOMA OF HONOUR

Natalie Press in Wasp

AUDIENCE AWARD

The Station Agent , Thom McCarthy

1 KM FILM

Johan Jonason for Terrible
Boy

MADE IN STOCKHOLM AWARD

Martin Nilsson and Mikael Kristenson
, Ioop

FIPRESCI Jury choice:

"Elle est des nôtres"

SPECIAL MENTION:

Dogs & Deer, Dogville
confessions

Moira Sullivan

Nordic
Correspondent