'Hål i mitt hjärta' ('A Hole in my Heart')

Shot almost entirely in one location, 'A Hole in my Heart' stars Sanna Bråding, Thorsten Flinck, Goran Marjanovic and Björn Almroth in a story which Lukas Moodysson described is "about a father and a son and a girl and a friend."

They live in a small suburban apartment where they film hardcore porn. Scenes include violent sex, humiliation and provocative assaults.

Some audiences left the screening - those who stayed were shocked - still the film was cheered, as it had its world première at the 2004 Toronto International Film Festival.

"Dark, provocative and disturbing, the new film by Lukas Moodysson is definitely not for all tastes, but it solidifies his standing as the most interesting director working in Scandinavia today," wrote Variety.

IndieWire's reviewer found it "one of the most disturbing, yet profoundly humanist films I have ever seen."

"It is fine if audiences feel bad about this. We live in a world where terrible things happen which people refuse to see. It takes almost a psychopath to walk around being happy and cheerful all the time," Moodysson told local press after the Swedish première, agreeing with the censors that "children should not be exposed to this."

"Whether it is a deliberate provocation? I am not actually sure what it is I have done. I definitely see this as my most complex film, with things going in 1,000 different directions and working on different levels all at once. When you watch it, it makes some sort of injection into your head, and stays with you for a long time, hopefully. If you make your breasts bigger, it is like issuing a statement that you want to grow. But I see this as a very sad image of how people make themselves smaller to fit into something," he concluded.

Director/Scriptwriter: Lukas Moodysson

"A young master's first masterpiece," wrote Ingmar Bergman about Lukas Moodysson's feature debut, 'Fucking Åmål' (aka 'Show Me Love'/1998), which won him the local Oscar, the Golden Bug.

The film put the little town of Åmål on the world map and drew almost 900,000 Swedes into the cinema. "A film requires a good script and a cast you believe in. What the director is supposed to do is still not quite clear to me," he said after 'Tillsammans' ('Together'/2000), his second feature film, which sold over two million tickets abroad, and 880,000 in Sweden.

Moodysson published his first collection of poems when he was 17, and was educated at the Film School in Stockholm. "If you want to change the world, you must take responsibility. I do it by making films - that is the only thing I know."

His 'Lilja4ever' ('Lilya 4-Ever'/2002), about sex trafficking, had a strong political impact, evoking a public debate on the subject, and was used as teaching material. With Stefan Jarl, he has made the documentary, 'Terrorister' ('Terrorists').

Producer: Lars Jönsson

As journalist student Lars Jönsson had realised he wanted to work in films. "I spent seven years trying to find out what I was best at. I made a few shorts, some information films, I directed, edited, but I realised I was rather good at finding ideas, creating concepts and deciding who should actually carry them into effect."

Jönsson's first production, Colin Nutley's 'Änglagård' ('House of Angels'), pulled in more than one million admissions in Sweden. Since then he has been working with "original storytellers with distinct, personal voices - creative directors, who write their own material", producing the films of - among others - Moodysson, Josef Fares, Maria Blom and Kristina Humle.

Director/Scriptwriter:

Lukas Moodysson

Producer:

Lars Jönsson, Memfis Film

Principal cast:

Thorsten Flinck, Sanna Bråding, Goran Marjanovic, Björn Almroth

Local distributor:

Sonet Film.

International sales:

Trust Film Sales