Spotify and the climate tech company Planethon is letting research and art meet in a new audio drama project called Twentyseventytwo. Three prominent Swedish writers and film directors have written audio dramas that take place 50 years in the future and is based on research data and future scenarios from Planethon. Henrik Björn’s story Ragna, told by Gizem Kling Erdogan, is now available for listening on Spotify.

In Ragna we meet Liv who lives in the great primeval forest with her grandfather who teaches her everything he knows about the world around them. But one day he takes her on a journey that will completely turn her world upside down. When everything is revealed, she must start making new difficult choices about the future. 

Two audio dramas are also written by Tuva Novotny (The Wild City with Edvin Ryding) and Nathalie Álvarez Mesén (Do not cry over your bees with Maxida Märak).

The project is released in connection with the Stockholm +50 environmental conference to help raise awareness of the climate crisis.

Detective Agency No. 2 are on vacation. Tiril, Oliver and Ocho will spend the week at uncle Rasmus’ cabin in Sugarbay, but their holiday is soon interrupted. A thief is roaming the camping ground right by the cabin. Pool toys, camping chairs, diving equipment and decorations are among the things that have gone missing. Suspicion quickly falls upon the man known as the Camping King, as he’s got the largest camping van on site. Now he’s disappeared and Detective Agency No. 2 are right on his heels.

The Search for the Camping King is the ninth activity book in the Detective Agency No. 2 series. Along the way we get to take part in the solving of the mystery, just like in the other thrilling activity books from the Detective Agency No. 2 universe.

Tarik Saleh’s Boy from Heaven, the political thriller set in Cairo’s Al-Azhar Mosque about the fisherman boy Adam (Tawfeek Barhom) who is thrown into a brutal power struggle between Egypt’s religious and political elite, was awarded Best Screenplay by the jury at the 75th Cannes International Film Festival, as well as the prestigeous Prix François Chalais Award for his film’s “dedication to the values of life affirmation and of journalism”.

The Hypnosis, directed by Ernst De Geer and written by De Geer and Mads Stegger, has finished filming. This is De Geer’s highly anticipated feature film debut after acclaimed shorts including The Culture which was a big festival success.

Herbert Nordrum (The Worst Person In The World) and Asta August (The Kingdom) play a young, Stockholm-based entrepreneurial couple who are trying to get a female health app start-up off the ground. On the eve of a competitive pitching event, the female partner undergoes hypnosis to break her smoking habit but in the process is also stripped of all her inhibitions. The premise for The Hypnosis grew out of De Geer’s observation of how modern society encourages people to be themselves but at the same time rejects people who do not conform to ideas of acceptable behaviour.

Mimmi Spång lead produces under production company Garagefilm International. The release date is yet to be announced.

The psychological thriller Boy From Heaven, written and directed by Tarik Saleh, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last week and has received great praise from international media.

“Boy from Heaven shows a rare level of philosophical engagement with the subject, something that pays off beautifully in its articulate and nuanced last act. /…/ Saleh’s film works on many more levels than sociopolitical, delivering a sophisticated adult thriller while at the same time exploring the intense psychological dynamic of the relationship between Adam and Ibrahim, who might not be as invincible as thinks he is. It’s a strange fit for Cannes, but more festival slots surely will follow — and hopefully bigger projects for this smart, stylish director.”
Deadline (US)

“Boy From Heaven marks another solid entry from writer-director Tarik Saleh, whose 2017 feature, The Nile Hilton Incident, put him on the map as a filmmaker deftly using genre to explore the tangled state of modern-day Egypt. /…/ An intriguingly damning portrait of the corruption currently hitting Egypt on all levels.”
Hollywood Reporter (US)

“Tarik Saleh’s superbly realised paranoid nightmare /…/ Now in an era when the Arab spring has arguably become a bittersweet memory, he has brought to the Cannes competition this watchable conspiracy espionage-drama satirising the corruption of church and state. There’s an intriguing mix of scorn and paranoia here, together with a yearning for individual figures of decency halfway down the food chain – it reminded me of John le Carré. /…/ A bold piece of work.”
The Guardian (UK)

“[A] satisfying thriller. /…/ Boy From Heaven is an ambitiously complex story of religious espionage. It was conceived as a Name Of The Rose-style mystery transposed to a Muslim world, but also has much in common with Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet in its backdrop of factions and power plays and in the trajectory of its central character, from innocent greenhorn negotiating a web of alliances to jaded, compromised survivor. There’s definite commercial potential here, as evidenced by the fact that it has already sold to Picturehouse in the UK. /…/ Boy From Heaven is a handsomely shot work, with Turkey doubling persuasively for Egypt. Widescreen shots capture the sober grandeur of the institution and the tumult of the streets outside; God’s eye camera positions offer glimpses of the covert meetings and calculated campaigns of a world which is driven by the schemes and whims of powerful men.”
Screen Daily (US)