The Swedish director Lukas Moodysson starts shooting his upcoming Swedish-Danish project "Vi är bäst" (translates: We are the best! English title TBA) next week. A film about being different and a tribute to friendship as the most important thing of all.
The film takes place in 1982 in Stockholm and tells the story of Bobo, Klara and Hedvig: Three 12-13-year-old girls who roam the streets. Who have to take care of themselves way too early. Who heat fish fingers in the toaster when mom is at the pub. Who start a punk band without any instruments, even though everybody says that punk is dead. Who are brave and tough and strong and weak and confused and weird.
Lukas Moodysson made his name with the youth film "Show Me Love" (1998) about a budding lesbian teenage romance in a Swedish small town, followed by the 70s commune portrait "Together". "Lilya 4-ever" (2002) examined human trafficking and sexual slavery in the brutal story of the downward spiral of a 16-year-old Soviet girl whose mother abandons her. Moodysson continued in the bleak and controversial track with "A Whole in My Heart" (2004), "Container" (2006) and "Mammoth (2009), starring Gabriel Garcia Bernal and Michelle Williams. With "Vi är bäst!" the director returns to the uplifting atmosphere of his earlier films.
Hope and vitality
"My goal is to make a happy film full of hope and vitality", Lukas Moodysson has stated, which according to film commissioner at the Danish Film Institute Rasmus Horskjær is apparent from the screenplay.
"The subject of Lukas Moodysson's film is that you can never be too late for punk, because punk lives within. The director portrays three odd friends' struggle to find each other and themselves in the shade of the post-punk movement, and he does it with affection, humor and sympathy. This is Lukas Moodysson in a cheerful mood, and the screenplay indicates a really nice feel-good coming of age period film."
Lukas Moodysson has written the screenplay based on the graphic novel "Never Goodnight" by the director's wife Coco Moodysson.
"Vi är bäst" is produced by Swedish Lars Jönsson from Memfis Film and co-produced by Danish Marie Gade from Zentropa. Zentropa has collaborated with Memfis Film for 20 years, and the two companies have collaborated on nearly all Lars von Trier and Lukas Moodysson's films plus films by Susanne Bier, Per Fly, Jesper W. Nielsen, Pernille Fischer Christensen, Josef Fares, Niels Arden Oplev, and Nikolaj Arcel.
Shooting begins on 15 October. Danish and Swedish release is set for autumn 2013. International sales are handled by TrustNordisk.
The film has received 1.4 million DKK in minor co-production subsidy from the Danish Film Institute.