Swedish Academy Awards through the ages: Only male directors nominated

When you go through the list of Swedish Oscars contributions you get the urge to see a lot of films. Both older classics and modern masterpieces. Like Lukas Moodyson's Fucking Åmål which was Sweden's contribution in 1999. Or Gabriela Pichler's Eat Sleep die who was selected in 2014. None of them passed all the way to nomination.

However, it did Bo Widerberg's Quarter Corps 1965, but was snubbed on location in Los Angeles by Italian champion De Sicas Yesterday, today tomorrow.

The category has been in its current form since 1956 and Sweden has submitted grants since 1957. Ingmar Bergman is ridiculously superior on the list. Eight times his films were chosen for Sweden's contribution, three times he was nominated and three times he also went home with the Oscar statue in the baggage. 1961, 1962 and 1984 for the Virgin source, As in a mirror and Fanny and Alexander.

Although only Bergman won, it still looks decent for Sweden on the top list, where with three statuettes and 16 nominations are in fifth place after Japan, Spain, France and Italy.

Of the 58 contributions Sweden submitted, only two have been directed by women. The aforementioned Gabriela Pichler's Eat Sleep Dying and Pernille August The Swine Elves 2012. The latter was also not nominated and the rest of the Swedish contributions have thus been directed by men.

The last Swedish director on site at The Dolby Theater in Los Angeles was Ruben Östlund, who was nominated for The Square 2017. But it didn't matter that he came there with a Gold palm from Cannes inside the west and advanced strategies for cutting the statue. It offered no Oscar for Ruben and Sweden.

It wasn't the year before either when Hannes Holm was there with a man named Ove. At the time, the tours were many before the crowds if the then-incoming President Trump's entry ban would prevent Swedish actor Bahar Pars, born in Iran, from participating in the crowds. The rules were changed just before the crow and she had to go there in the end.

"That I and Rolf Lassgård, ie Ove and Parvaneh, stand there together and hold each other's hands is a statement in itself," she told the Culture News a few weeks before the gala.

In 2004 Kay Pollacks As In Heaven was nominated. The year before, it was Mikael Håfström's Evil, after Jan Guillou's novel. Even then, the Swedish presence was problematic. Jan Guillou was banned by the United States and could not go first, but must have worked hard for months to get a visa, and succeeded just before the crowds. But then the tickets were not enough.

"Håfström gave my ticket to his wife," Guillou told Aftonbladet.

Then it took 15 years before Mikael Håfström made a Swedish film again. Quick has its premiere next week.

Three of Sweden's biggest filmmakers have had an extra tough time in the Oscar context. Above all, Roy Andersson - recently rewarded with a Silver Lion in Venice - who has seen his films selected four times and as many times seen them being thinned out in the nomination process. A love story, Songs from the second floor, You alive and A pigeon sat on a branch and pondered on existence have all gone the same way. Maybe it will be the fifth time liked About the Infinite next year?

Bo Widerberg and Jan Troell have also had a hard time. Both were nominated three times - in addition to the Quarter Quarter also for Ådalen 31 and Lust and Engraving great - but it went in the mold.

Jan Troell went all the way to nomination three times - with the Emigrants, the New Builders and the Engineer André's aviation, but just as many times he had to applaud a colleague instead.

Other Swedish films nominated for an Oscar are Under the Sun, Taurus and Dear John.

This year, the category changes names from Best non-English-language films to best international films. If Levan Akins And then we danced goes ahead in the nomination process is revealed in early October. The culture critic's film critic Fredrik Sahlin likes the film a lot.

- A beautiful and a little sad story as a sprit of life, I do not think it goes all the way but the theme is right in time and the price of best foreign films usually go to narrower films than the domestic Oscars, so And then we danced probably in the first thinning anyway.