Sweden's "Bloody Boys" win brussels script award

The Best Screenplay Award went to Sweden's "Bloody Boys/JÄVLA POJKAR), written and directed by Shaker K. Tahrer. The films traces three families going through rupture and turmoil. More here.

The full list of awards is as follows:

• GOLDEN IRIS AWARD for best film + Cineuropa Award DEATH FOR SALE by Faouzi Bensaïdi (France/Belgique/Maroc)  
• WHITE IRIS AWARD for best first film CLIP (KLIP) by Maja Miloš (Serbia)  
• AUDIENCE AWARD ITALY LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT by Gustav Hofer and Luca Ragazzi (Italy/Germany)   
• FEDEX CINEPHILE AWARD KAUWBOY by Boudewijn Koole (Netherlands) 
• RTBF TV AWARD QUAND JE SERAI PETIT by Jean-Paul Rouve (France)   
• Be TV AWARD NO REST FOR THE WICKED (NO HABRÁ PAZ PARA LOS MALVADOS) by Enrique Urbizu (Spain)  
• PRIME TV AWARD THE DEEP BLUE SEA by Terence Davies (USA/UK)   
• BEST SHORT FILM AWARDS: A NEW OLD STORY by Antoine Cuypers (Belgium) LE CRI DU HOMARD de Nicolas Guyot (Belgium) and ROBYN O. by Cecilia Verheyden (Belgium).

For more informtion, visit the Brussels Film festival.

Pirate Bay: a writer's perspective

The Pirate Bay ruling has unleashed a lot of emotion on the web. It's interesting that the discussions have centred on movies rather than music this time. Coming from the music biz, I can safely say to the movie businesses: "you ain't seen nothing yet" in terms of piracy. For creators, trying to find justifications for Pirate Bay is a very dangerous game to play for - in my opinion - two major reasons. 1) it promotes piracy on a very, very large scale indeed, and 2) by centralising free content it also blocks any of the other initiatives that creators might try and put in place.

Let me explain: the one big lesson people are not taking from the music debacle is that creators need to connect directly with their audiences. This is even more important to me than individual distribution. We have to build and nurture audiences so that they are available to us, rather than third-party sites. The good news for people that like it is that giving stuff away is going to be a major part of the new biz anyway. But WE have to be giving it away to OUR audiences. The freebies have to be part of OUR strategy, not Pirate Bay's or YouTube's. People have to come to OUR sites, and be exposed to OUR goodies, T-shirts, Director's Cuts, downloadable scripts, public appearances and OUR ads. Otherwise we will never be able to control our futures.

By giving everything away both YouTube and Pirate Bay short-circuit our ability to build audiences as they hold onto both the visitor data and the advertising revenue, leaving us the crumbs from our own table.

Most people I know are aware that people spend money to create music and movies, and are willing to participate in one way or another. Personally, I like visiting the sites of writers and directors, reading their comments and occasionally buying their books, movies or whatever. But both Pirate Bay and YouTube increase the distance between the creator and the spectator, which is why I think they both should be treated with caution.

All the rest about freedom, copyrights and the end of the world as we know it is editorial chatter.

Millenium explodes onto Nordic screens

The first instalment of the best-selling "Millenium" trilogy opened to explosive figures in Sweden and Denmark. Some 350,000 people queued for the 140-minute film of Stieg Larsson's sweeping tale of dark secrets in a darker family, putting it at the top of both box offices over the weekend.

Directed by Niels Arden Oplev and written by Nicolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg it will soon be released in Norway (March 13), Finland (March 27) and France, where UGC is planning to release it May 13, the opening day of the Cannes Film Festival. Rumours in the press have it that Millenium will open the festival.

"You, the Living" picks up Nordic Council Film prize

One of the most bizarre films in Europe has just picked up the Nordic Council Film Prize. "You, the Living", written and directed by Sweden's Ray Andersson ("Songs From the Second Floor") is a surreal but very touching exploration of man's best and worst sides. Shot entirely in studio, it breaks with what Andersson calls the "prevailng Anglo-Saxon film dramaturgy, but is still a story". Looking at extracts, I'm reminded of Tati at times due to the disconnected style of using bizarre vignettes. One of the most remarkable scenes features a tramp singing an ode to a motorcycle. Odd, but it works.

"You, the Living" was shown in the "Un certain regard" section of Cannes 2007, was Sweden’s Oscar entry and won Best Film, Director and Script at Sweden’s Guldbagge awards.

The official site is here. For a few extracts, visit Cineuropa's website.

Ingmar Bergman dies at 89

Ingmar Bergman, one of cinema's key figures, has died at the age of 89. The writer and director of dozens of films and plays died at his home in Faro, Sweden. Over his remarkable career, Bergman was nominated no less than nine times for Oscars as a director, with three of his films picking up best Foreign Film awards.

Bergman's filmography includes "Wild Strawberries", "The Seventh Seal" and "Cries and Whispers". His career started as a projectionist's assistant, later studying to be an actor and director. His first filmed work was the script for "Frenzy", directed by Alf Sjoberg in 1944. Over the coming years, he would chalk up strong critical and commercial success with his often harrowing movies.

His last public work was the TV fiction "Saraband". He once famously noted that he had difficulty watching his own films in retrospect as he found them "depressing". Given that many sprang from his own experience, this might be understandable to a degree although it hints to me that he never found closer on many of the issues.

For more about Bergman, visit Ingmar Bergman Face to Face.

Ingmar Bergman on Amazon US