Sweden is sending Ronnie Sandahl’s Tigers to this year’s International Oscar race.
The film is a coming-of-age drama about the world of professional sports, telling the true story of 16-year-old football prodigy Martin Bengtsson (played by Erik Enge).
It was written and directed by Ronnie Sandahl, based on Martin Bengtsson’s autobiographical novel In the Shadow of San Siro. The project was produced by produced by Piodor Gustafsson in co-production with Lucia Nicolai, Marcello Paolillo and Birgitte Skov.
Tigers was voted Best film in the Flash Forward section at Busan International Film Festival last year. It also picked up awards for Best Emerging International Actor (Erik Enge) and Best Emerging Italian Actor (Antonio Bannò) at Alice nella città, the independent and parallel section dedicated to films for children and youth at the Rome International Film Festival.
“I could not be more happy, proud or grateful. This is a great honour. Making films is a team sport and we are many who have shared the dream of this film, many who have worked hard. We hope that the nomination itself will help the film reach even more people, both on our home turf and abroad. But as an incurably competitive person, I must admit that of course I also hope that this is just the beginning. We want to win the whole goddamn thing,” said Sandahl.