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Les Misérables Just 6.5 You have also been on the
receiving end of various prizes and awards with films you have produced and made. What is your general view on competing in this artform? To compete is part of our job as filmmakers. To win the Palme d’Or in Cannes was a big moment. At the best of times the competitive element gives you energy and puts the right kind of pressure on you, in that you have to anticipate the moment the film is screened in the cinema and its reception. On the other hand, it’s not always so that a filmmaker wants to be popular and embraced by a jury. There are times when what you want to achieve is quite the opposite. For me it has always been as important to lose, as it has been to win. Don’t underestimate the power of the revenge. What has Stockholm Film Festival meant to you over the years, both earlier in your career and now that you have become established? Our film De Ofrivilliga (Involuntary) had its Swedish premiere at Stockholm Film Festival and we won two awards – one for best script plus the audience award I think. That was a big thing for us. Both Ruben [Östlund, director] and myself were parents with young children at the time and were both out in the countryside when we received the news, with no possibility to make the award ceremony in time – despite Git (Scheynius, founder and Festival Director) and others furiously calling us. That has always been a nice memory, you sit somewhere far away in the autumn darkness with a little baby while someone calls out your name at an award ceremony at the same time. I think Stockholm Film Festival is both unique and an important date on Stockholm’s cultural calendar, would you agree on that, and explain what you personally think it brings to the table for the cultural life of the Stockholmer? I think Git and Stockholm Film Festival have been outstanding in creating a festival that has always felt relevant throughout the years. You have to make it seem worthwhile to go to the cinema and that’s something that Stockholm Film Festival has succeeded in year after year. The city lights up during this time. And to me personally it means a time when I can meet colleagues from all over the world. To work in film means that you, regardless of your role, can devote yourself 100 percent to something and it’s nice to experience it together with other people. Plus, I’d like to heap a lot of praise on all the chauffeurs, volunteers, machinists and visitors that make it all work. I would like to urge everyone to go see even more film this year. Can we agree on that? Stockholm International Film Festival, 6-17 November Three festival highlights: Atlantics Romantic and melancholic. The first black female director to be nominated for the Palme d’Or in Cannes, Mati Diop has with Atlantics created a film where a traditional love drama is also a study of women’s role in society, their strong relationships with each other, and has a supernatural zombie twist. Les Misérables Les Misérables investigates the inner qualities of the raw Paris suburbs, and portrays an idealistic policeman who joins a special task force with unconventional methods. The similarities with its famous namesake are that it’s gripping, bloody, sad and hopeful, plus that it takes place in the same little area of Paris where the 19th century book was penned. The film won the Prix du Jury in Cannes and is the French nomination for the Oscars. Just 6.5 Huge Iranian success Just 6.5 is a crime thriller where this year’s recipient of the Stockholm Achievement Award, actor Payman Maadi, stars as a Tehran cop, operating in a moral grey zone to take down a drug lord. The title references the country’s six and half million drug users. 9