The Swedish Arts Grants Committee

Merab, a devoted dancer, has been training for years with his partner Mary for a spot in the National Georgian Ensemble. The arrival of another male dancer, Irakli, sparks both an intense rivalry and romantic desire that may cause Merab to risk his future in dance as well as his relationships.

25 years after Paris is Burning, we dive back into the fierce world of voguing battles in the Kiki scene of New York City, where competition between Houses demands leadership, painstaking practice, and performances on point. A film collaboration between Kiki gatekeeper, Twiggy Pucci Garçon, and Swedish filmmaker Sara Jordenö, we’re granted exclusive access into this high stakes world, where tough competitions act as a gateway into the daily lives of LGBTQ youth of color in NYC. The new generation of ballroom youth use the motto, “Not About us Without Us”. Twiggy and Sara’s insider-outsider approach to their stories breathes fresh life into the representation of a marginalized community who demand visibility and real political power.

Ewa Rudling's career as a photographer got an explosive start. She was in Paris when the student revolt began in May 1968. Ewa borrowed a camera and the pictures she took at the barricades at the Sorbonne University ended up in British The Observer. Physical and psychological abuse was part of young Ewa Rudling's everyday life. She had to take care of the little sister, but never felt any support from her mother. At the age of 19, Ewa too off for Rome. Her Nordic looks and appearance made her a model. Later she moved to New York and on the skating rink in Central Park, she met her prospective husband, Claude Duthuit, daughter's son to the artist Henri Matisse.

Inspired by real life events, Madame Luna tells the story of an Eritrean refugee who is washed ashore in Libya and survives to become one of the most notorious human smugglers, with deep ties to the Italian Mafia. Now trapped in Italy and forced to experience the brutalising reality endured by the people she has exploited in the past, Madame Luna must try to find a way out before she is recognized and brought to justice. In the process she forms a powerful bond with a younger version of herself.

A tone-deaf cop works to track down a group of guerilla percussionists whose anarchic public performances are terrorizing the city.

As a couple goes on a trip to find their way back to each other, a sideshow artist and his shady entourage emerge from the woods, terrorizing them, luring them deeper into a maelstrom of psychological terror and humiliating slapstick.

In the small community of Åmotfors in Värmland, Olof lives a quiet life as a beekeeper after losing his partner many years ago. All that remains is his teenage daughter Lise, who increasingly seeks to escape the confines of home. Olof struggles to reach her, and grief has long lain buried in silence—until he suddenly falls ill and is forced to confront all that has remained unspoken. With great sensitivity, Marcus Carlsson portrays the different stages of life and reminds us how the fragility between people can hold both pain and light.

Misfits to Yuppies is the last of three films (Dom kallar oss mods, Ett anständigt liv, Det sociala arvet) that shows conditions for addicts in Stockholm and try to find out how social legacy have been transferred to their children from previous films.