f Let’s talk about Sweden – with Sweden: On the Focus on Sweden section at the 2016 Kraków Film Festival

For the last several years, there has been a tradition at the Kraków Film Festival, which focuses primarily on documentaries, that one section is dedicated to films from a given country. In 2016, the country chosen was Sweden. This short subject discusses the main aspects of that event. The Focus on Sweden section consisted of sixteen films, mostly documentaries, the oldest from 2014. The festival’s catalogue emphasized the vibrancy and diversity of Swedish film production, which raises the question of whether one can trace any patterns among these diverse films. Discussion of documentaries like The Swedish Theory of Love (Gandini, 2016), Filip & Fredrik presenterar trevligt folk (Nice People) (Helgeson and af Klintberg, 2015) and Flickan som räddade mitt liv (The Girl Who Saved My Life) (Hirori, 2016) demonstrates the ways in which they challenge viewers’ opinions of Scandinavia and the world.