Statement: The Swedish Film Institute is a national film agency and its main purpose is to implement the Swedish film policies as set up by our parliament. The key word here being national. For everyone. For all groups of people that together constitute our nation. One of my main focuses when taking on the post as CEO of the Swedish Film Institute was to make sure that the idea of equal rights should permeate all aspects of the Film Institute, the work we do and the services we provide whether it be production financing, distribution support, international launches, digitizing archival films or purchases of literature to our library. That we lived up to being a film institute for the nation.

Even if Sweden is considered one of the most open, and indeed open minded, societies in the world we still have a lot of work to do when it comes to creating equal opportunities to women, LGBT people, ethnic minorities and other overlooked and discriminated members of society as those that white middle class heterosexual men already have. It is in this direction that I have tried to steer our focus. Why shouldn’t homosexuals have the same right as heterosexuals to make their lives and experiences seen in films? Why should men have an absolute right to the resources needed to make films? Why should films, in part, financed by public money only describe the “majority”? The world is so much more interesting than that. Having said that, we are still very privileged in Sweden. The standard of equality that we try to live by in our country is something that we at the Swedish Film Institute would very much like to export at the same time as exporting our films. In this sense it is natural and important for us to support and cooperate with Side by Side LGBT Film Festival.Шведский институт кино – национальная организация, и ее главная задача – внедрение принципов шведского кино, установленных нашим парламентом. Ключевое слово здесь – национальная организация. Значит - для всех. Для всех людей, которые все вместе формируют нашу нацию.

Anna Serner, CEO Swedish Film Institute