When is the last time you heard of a filmmaker giving money back? Well it has happened. Swedish director Lisa Aschan has turned down a $730,000 grant she was awarded based on the success of her first film She Monkeys (which won the best narrative film at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival) by the Swedish Film Institute to make her second film The Deposit.
She said her film The Deposit was “not suitable” for the grant so the award went to Sofia Norlin for her film Tenderness. The deposit is a horror film and both Aschan and her producer Anna-Maria Kantarius felt the project being a genre film was not appropriate for the scholarship. They are still moving ahead with the film.
Tenderness “is set in a mining town in Sweden’s far north and focuses on young people trying to set up a new society even as the unstable underground mine threatens to tear everything apart.” Under the terms of the grant the film needs to be ready to premiere at the Stockholm Film Festival in November.
The grant was created by Swedish Film Institute in order to get the amount of women making films in Sweden up to 40%.
She Monkeys Director Lisa Aschan Hands Back Stockholm’s $730,000 Grant (Hollywood Reporter)
Norlin takes over Stockholm’s production grant (Screen Daily)
Lisa Aschan Wins $800,000 From Stockholm Film Fund (Women and Hollywood)
