Fund film premières in Cannes

The spring 2009 selection of the Göteborg International Film Festival Fund has recently been announced. In total nine films from four different parts of the world have been selected. One of them, Min Ye, by African master Souleymane Cissé were screened during the Cannes festival.

Since ten years the Göteborg International Film Festival works in cooperation with the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, SIDA, with a fund that supports film makers living and working in countries in transition. The fund has, since 1998, contributed with support to more than 70 film productions in more than 25 countries all over the world. Among the nine films chosen for post production support this is Souleymane Cissé’s Min Ye – a family drama from today’s Mali, with several strong portraits of women. The film will now première during a special screening in Cannes, with the director himself as a guest. In 1987 Souleymane Cissé received the Jury Award for his masterpiece Yeelen.

– Of course it an honour when on of ”our” films turns up in Cannes. But even better is that Cissé now has directed his first film since 1995 and that our fund have been able to be part of the process, says fund manager Camilla Larsson.

Among the other supported films are four documentaries from India, The Philippines and Armenia as well as four feature films from från Mozambique, Peru, Nicaragua and Iraq.