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GÖTEBORG, Sweden – Jan Troell, the 91-year-old Swedish director and 1972 Oscar nominee for “The Emigrants,” is giving interviews in a Göteborg hotel, his leg propped on a chair, a walking stick, his daughter, Johanna, and wife, Agneta, both collaborators on his films, by his side.

The director, who turned down a ten-year Warner Bros. contract to return to Sweden, has been awarded the 2023 Goteborg Festival’s Nordic Honorary Dragon Award. The prize reflects a life-long connection to still-and-moving images that began when his mother brought him home from the hospital and his dad began filming.

Some of that footage, as well as excerpts from his films, will be combined with new dramatic scenes, for a new film project “Dyning” which is a memoir.

“I’m enjoying editing ‘Dyning’,” said Troell, adding. “I don’t totally identify with my age. I do physically but I still have the same lust for making pictures and images,...

Göteborg is the home of Scandinavia’s most important international film festival, offering one of the world’s most generous prizes: a Dragon Award of 1 million Swedish kronor (nearly 158 000 Usd) for Best Nordic Film. But comparatively speaking, the festival’s short film award is even more remarkable: this year, a selection of Swedish films up to 15 minutes in length competed for a ‘Startsladden’ award of 938 000 kronor (about 148 000 Usd) in funding and equipment. The winner was ‘The Day my Dad was Shot’ (‘Gabriel och Lasermannen’, dir. Babak Najafi), a documentary recording the impact of a gunman’s shooting spree on the life of a young man whose father was injured. This year, the festival also hosted a ‘Startsladden Retrospective’, celebrating the tenth anniversary of the competition by screening the winning films from previous years.

Göteborg’s spotlight on short film extends far beyond its Swedish shorts competition. In addition to the...

Release Date: March 6 (limited)

Director: Jan Troell

Writer: Niklas Rådström

Cinematographers: Mischa Gavrjusjov, Jan Troell

Starring: Maria Heiskanen, Mikael Persbrandt, Jesper Christensen

Studio/Run Time: IFC Films, 131 mins.

Leisurely realism elevates period tale of a woman who lives through pictures

Every photograph is a miracle for the durable matriarch of Everlasting Moments, and in the hands of enduring Swedish great Jan Troell, it’s hard to disagree. First set in 1907, the movie loosely recounts the fact-based story of Maria Larsson (Maria Heiskanen), a lower-class Swede with a lifelong affinity for photography. The movie extends into World War I and beyond, but it's always punctuated by Maria’s fleeting moments with her camera, which adopt a lightly symbolic weight as the years pass.

Movie Jungle has images in from IFC Films' "Everlasting Moments" starring Maria Heiskanen, Hans Alfredson, Jesper Christensen, Emil Jensen, Callin Öhrvall and Mikael Persbrandt.   Five-time Academy Award® nominee Jan  Troell ("Visions of Europe," "Frozen Dream") helms the drama and writes the story alongside Agneta Ulfsäter-Troell. Niklas Rådström adapts the screenplay.   Sweden, early 1900s. In a time of social change and unrest, war and poverty, a young working class woman, Maria, wins a camera in a lottery. The decision to keep it alters her whole life. The camera grants Maria new eyes with which to see the world, and brings the charming photographer "Piff Paff Puff" into her life. Trouble ensues when Maria's alcoholic, womanizing husband, feels threatened by the young man and his wife's newfound outlook on life.   See the gallery now and see the trailer here.  ...

Movie Jungle has images in from IFC Films' "Everlasting Moments" starring Maria Heiskanen, Hans Alfredson, Jesper Christensen, Emil Jensen, Callin Öhrvall and Mikael Persbrandt. Five-time Academy Award® nominee Jan Troell ("Visions of Europe," "Frozen Dream") helms the drama and writes the story alongside Agneta Ulfsäter-Troell. Niklas Rådström adapts the screenplay. Sweden, early 1900s. In a time of social change and unrest, war and poverty, a young working class woman, Maria, wins a camera in a lottery.

Movie Jungle has images in from IFC Films' "Everlasting Moments" starring Maria Heiskanen, Hans Alfredson, Jesper Christensen, Emil Jensen, Callin Öhrvall and Mikael Persbrandt. Five-time Academy Award® nominee Jan Troell ("Visions of Europe," "Frozen Dream") helms the drama and writes the story alongside Agneta Ulfsäter-Troell. Niklas Rådström adapts the screenplay. Sweden, early 1900s. In a time of social change and unrest, war and poverty, a young working class woman, Maria, wins a camera in a lottery.

“Everlasting Moments,” directed and written by Jan Troell is now Sweden’s push for the foreign language film Oscar®. The film is based on his wife's grandmother who was Sweden's first female photographer and had its premiere at this year's Toronto International Film Festival. Also writing the story was Agneta Ulfsäter-Troell, Niklas Rådström penned the screenplay. It was shot in Sweden and Lithuania and produced by Christer Nilson, Tero Kaukomaa and Thomas Stenderup.