The Church of Sweden Film Award 2010 went to Babak Najafi’s film Sebbe, an existentially gripping depiction of a young person’s ultimate loneliness. The jury described the film as “a visual gospel about inner strength that transforms physical and mental humiliation into liberation and hope for the future”.

The Church of Sweden presented the award for the ninth year running at the Göteborg International Film Festival. This year’s winner, Babak Najafi’s debut feature film Sebbe, was described by the jury as a varied drama about a single mother and her son in a Sweden scarred by an age of widespread poverty, and where impotence and explosive desperation make extreme demands on the survival instincts of the individual.

Life for 15-year-old Sebbe is an uphill struggle to say the least. His father is dead and his mother, consumed by grief, has started to drink too much. Her anxiety finds an outlet in the form of aggression towards Sebbe, and her parenting skills leave a lot to be desired. To make matters worse, they live on an inhospitable council estate where life revolves around constantly going without. The central message of the film is the lifelong bond between a child and its parents. Sebbe, who is bullied in school, has no one else to turn to. Finally, desperation takes hold.

Director Babak Najafi was born in 1975 in Iran, and his keen interest in storytelling emerged during his childhood in Teheran in the 1980s. He came to Uppsala in Sweden in 1987, attended the University College of Film, Radio, Television and Theatre’s directors’ programme from 1998 to 2002, received the Bo Widerberg bursary in 2004 and has made several short films, including Gösta & Lennart (2001) and Elixir (2004).

Sebbe will premiere at Swedish cinemas on 12 March.

As of this year, the Church of Sweden Film Award will only go to Swedish feature films that premiere during the year in question. The prize money of 50,000 Swedish kronor will be awarded for a film that “highlights existential, equity and social issues in a way that makes a resounding impact”. The film must also be appropriate for church purposes, for example for discussion groups on films and existence.

This year’s jury was made up of Tomas Axelson, lecturer in religious studies focusing on media, Lisbeth Gustafsson, secretary for culture at the Church of Sweden, Tuulikki Koivunen Bylund, bishop of Härnösand diocese, and Mikael Ringlander, priest and project manager of the Kultursamverkan cultural initiative at the Church of Sweden.

Read more about the award at:
http://www.svenskakyrkan.se/default.aspx?di=354955