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Dilvin Asaad and Bianca Delbravo in Paradise Is Burning

Mika Gustafson's narrative feature debut, Paradise Is Burning, co-written by Alexander Öhrstrand, revolves around three sisters, 16-year-old Laura (Bianca Delbravo), 12-year-old Mira (Dilvin Asaad) and seven-year-old Steffi (Safira Mossberg), who are left to fend for themselves by their absent mother. With summer fast approaching and left unsupervised, the three sisters enjoy their freedom, living a wild and carefree existence. However, when social services schedule a meeting, Laura must find someone to impersonate their mother, while keeping the threat of social services a secret from Mira and Steffi.

Gustafson's previous works include the 2017 feature documentary, Silvana - Väck Mig När Ni Vaknat, about the Swedish artist and feminist, Silvana Imam, which she co-directed with Olivia Kastebring and Christina Tsiobanelis. Her shorts include Secretly Filmed My Boyfriend After We Had a Fight, which confronted the camera's invasive gaze, and Mephobia (2017) about.

Deep in a Swedish forest, three sisters spend their summer days lost in a world of their own invention. Laura, at 16, has become the protector of Mira, 12, and little Steffi, only 7, after their mother vanished without explanation. Under blue skies and surrounded by tall trees, they play without rules or restrictions, free as birds. But always, responsibility weighs on eldest Laura. She must keep them fed and safe from harm—no simple task for a girl still a child herself.

Paradise is Burning explores this unusual family with empathy and care. Directed by Mika Gustafson in her feature debut, the film follows the sisters through a summer that brings both joy and fear. Joy in days spent swimming and laughing together without a care. Fear as a social worker’s call threatens to tear them from the only home they’ve known. Gustafson watches with gentle eyes, never rushing her...

Mika Gustafson’s feature has some obvious influences in The Virgin Suicides or American Honey but wears them lightly in this fresh and beautifully cut debut

Like an unusually designed coat featuring quirky details and an interesting fabric choice from a young designer’s first collection, Swedish writer-director Mika Gustafson’s feature debut has raw edges and some sloppy stitching in places, but the whole is fresh, directional and beautifully cut. Sure, it’s not hard to spot the influences that consciously or not infuse the work, from Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides and The Bling Ring (with their lolling sisters and girl-gang antics respectively), to Andrea Arnold’s studies of lost or neglected adolescents and the tender social realism of Hirokazu Kore-eda. In fact, Paradise Is Burning overlaps significantly with the plot of Nobody Knows, both being stories about underage siblings abandoned by their parents and surviving as...

Two very different indies circling a cantor and slasher debut in moderate to wide release along with a handful of limited openings from Close Your Eyes to Paradise Is Burning on this late summer weekend with the fall festival season about to kick off.

Sony Pictures Classics launches Jason Schwartzman and Carol Kane-starring Between The Temples on 576 screens. Directed by Nathan Silver, written by Silver and C. Mason Wells with Schwartzman as a cantor losing his voice, and maybe his faith. His world turns upside down when his grade school music teacher (Kane) re-enters his life as his new adult Bat Mitzvah student. SPC acquired the thoughtful comedy out of Sundance. Also stars Robert Smigel (Leo), Madeline Weinstein (Beach Rats), and Matthew Shear (Mistress America). It played Sundance and Berlin to strong reviews (sits at 87% with critics on Rotten Tomatoes) and made its New York debut at Tribeca.

Veteran...

Three young sisters -- Laura (Bianca Delbravo), Mira (Dilvin Asaad) and Steffi (Safira Mossberg), aged sixteen, twelve and seven -- are left to their own devices by the ever-absent mother in a small Swedish town. Their household is chaotic, mischievous and slightly unsanitary, but pretty happy. As the oldest, Laura assumes the role of a “matriarch” and takes care of her sisters; she is also the one most prone to melancholy and uncertainty about what’s to come. On the edge of childhood and adult life, towards which she was already pushed way too early, she feels a bit withdrawn among all the games and playful petty criminal activities, such as stealing food from stores and breaking into richer houses that have a pool. The reality...

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Rome-based Intramovies has clinched further key sales on the Swedish pic “Paradise is Burning” for which rising talent Mika Gustafson won best director and writer at the 2023 Venice Orizzonti.

The coming-of-age drama was sold to Conic in the U.K. and Ireland, HBO Max for Eastern Europe (TV and VOD rights), Leopardo Filmes in Portugal, Providence/Belas Artes Grupo Brazil, and Mongsang in South Korea.

The story turns on young siblings Laura, Mira and Steffi, who live a totally free and wild life with no parental supervision. When social services intervene, the eldest sister, Laura (Bianca Delbravo-best actress for her role at Lisbon & Estoril Fest), tries to convince the recently befriended Hanna (Ida Engvoll of Netflix’s “Love & Anarchy”) to be the sisters’ stand-in mother.

“The very talented Swedish director Mika Gustafson has brilliantly captured a portrait of adolescence,” commented Mongsang’s CEO Jihyun Min. “Paradise Is Burning...

Victor Erice’s “Close Your Eyes” won best film at the 17th edition of Leffest Lisboa Film Festival, which announced awards Saturday night.

Marking Erice’s first feature film since his 1992 docudrama “The Quince Tree Sun” and garnering almost universal positive reviews – Variety called it “an aching ode to film, time and memory” – following its world premiere at Cannes, “Close Your Eyes” has screened at Toronto, Busan, BFI London and New York.

During Leffest, in a session moderated by Paulo Branco, 83-year old Erice took part in a conversation with preeminent 64-year old Portuguese helmer, Pedro Costa, whose short “The Daughters of Fire,” was a Cannes Special Screening and also had its Portuguese premiere at the fest.

Erice remarked during the event, one fest highlight, that both he and Costa are working in the shadow of two great filmmakers – “Don Luis Buñuel” and “Don Manoel de Oliveira” – and he added...

Mika Gustafson’s “Paradise Is Burning” – sold by Italy’s Intramovies and previously known as “Sisters” – has debuted a trailer and exclusive first clip ahead of its premiere in Venice Film Festival’s Horizons section.

Set in Sweden, it sees young sisters Laura, Mira and Steffi trying to get by on their own after their mother leaves.

When social services call, Laura comes up with a plan: in order to avoid foster care, she needs to find someone to impersonate their mom. Intriguing stranger Hanna, who keeps breaking into empty houses with her, might be just the right fit.

Nima Yousefi produces for Sweden’s Hobab, joined by Marco Valerio Fusco and Micaela Fusco (Intramovies), Denmark’s Maria Stevnbak Westergren (ToolBox Film), and Finland’s Venla Hellstedt and Jenni Jauri (Tuffi Films).

“I am interested in taking kids seriously,” Gustafson tells Variety.

“When I started out 13 years ago, I already...

Rome-based Intramovies has picked up sales rights to Swedish up-and-coming filmmaker Mika Gustafson’s “Sisters,” ahead of the film’s pitch as a work in progress at Göteborg’s Nordic Film Market, which runs Feb. 2-5.

The film is being produced by Nima Yousefi for Stockholm-based Hobab, behind the multi-awarded “Clara Sola” by Nathalie Álvarez Mesen.

European co-producers on board “Sisters” take in Italy s’ Intramovies, Denmark’s Toolbox Film and Finland’s Tuffi Films.

Intramovies’ head of acquisitions and production Marco Valerio Fusco said “being the Italian co-producers, we loved the project since its inception, and were very excited by the film’s potential, the impressive script and all talents involved.

“For the good of the film, we didn’t put any pre-emption on the title, leaving the door open to any other possible sales agent. Then when Nima offered us to come on board, we immediately accepted,” said...

Sisters

After trying her hand in the docu realm, Swedish filmmaker Mika Gustafson made the move into fiction last June with what has be coined as a female-led drama. Non-actors Bianca Delbravo, Dilvin Asaad and Safira Mossberg joined Ida Engvoll in Sisters – a tale about fending for yourself when mom is gone. Supported by Eurimages coin in March 2022, this was produced by Nima Yousefi. on paper, we got some Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Nobody Knows vibes. Gustafson wrote the project alongside actor-screenwriter Alexander Öhrstrand.

Gist: Ida Engvoll plays Hanna, a young woman drawn into an unexpected adventure when she encounters Laura (16), eldest of a trio of socially-deprived sisters.…...