PARADISE IS BURNING
In a working-class area of Sweden, sisters Laura (16), Mira (12), and Steffi (7) get by on their own, left to their own devices by an absent mother. With summer on the way and no parents around, life is wild and carefree, vivacious and anarchic. However, when social services call a meeting, Laura has to find someone to impersonate their mom, or the girls will be taken into foster care and separated. She keeps the threat a secret, so as not to worry her younger sisters. As the decisive moment draws closer, new tensions arise, forcing the three sisters to negotiate the fine line between the euphoria of total freedom and the harsh realities of growing up.
Mika Gustafson was born in Linköping, Sweden, in 1988. She graduated from Valand Film Academy in 2016. The same year, she received the Nordic Talents prize in Copenhagen. Her graduation film Mephobia, won an Iconoclastic prize at the Torino Film Festival and Best Actor at Premiere Plans. Her documentary Silvana was awarded at the National Film Awards for best documentary in 2017. She was granted her own exhibition at Centre d’Art Contemporain de Genève. She was part of the Dragon Award Jury at Gothenburg International Film Festival in 2019 and was selected to Berlinale Script Station in 2020, with her fellow scriptwriter Alexander Öhrstrand. Paradise is Burning is her first fiction feature.
Venice Film Festival
– Venice Horizons Award for Best Director
– Authors under 40 Award for Best Screenwriting
PARADISE IS BURNING (ff.)
DIRECTOR: Mika Gustafson
COUNTRY: Sweden, Italy, Denmark, Finland
YEAR: 2023.
RUNTIME: 108’
LANGUAGE: Swedish
CAST: Bianca Delbravo, Dilvin Asaad, Safira Mossberg, Ida Engvoll, Mitja Siren, Marta Oldenburg
PRODUCTION: Hobab
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FIRST TWO STEPS