Stockholm Film Festival salutes Sarandon, Carradine and Besson

Actress Susan Sarandon, "Hollywood's uncrowned queen" of more than 60 films, will be presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 20th edition of Stockholm's International Film Festival, November 18-29.

Also, French director/producer Luc Besson will be presented with the Visionary Awards honoring his contribution to film.

The festival opens with current independent favorite, Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire with the director Lee Daniels in attendance. It closes with Up in the Air by Jason Reitman and starring George Clooney.

Among the 180 films in this year's program, other features being screened include Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank, Tarik Saleh's Metropia, Jaco van Dormael's Mr. Nobody, Xavier Dolan's I Killed My Mother, Cherien Dabis's Amreeka and Giorgos Lanthimos's Dogtooth.

The Road with Viggo Mortenson is part of a special section of the festival, 'Spotlight: Apocalypse - The Time Is Now,' featuring a seminar discussion and films such as Korean disaster film Haeundae, the animated picture 9, France's Happy End, dolphin documentary The Cove and Earth Days.

Appropriate to Sweden's climate, a frozen screen will be made of ice from the river near the famous ice hotel in Jukkasjarvi for outdoor screenings in addition to the six theaters where films will be screened. Paperless ticket holders can show ushers cell phone displays to enter theaters.

There will be Red Carpet premieres such as Wes Anderson's The Fantastic Mr. Fox, green carpets for environmental films, and black carpets for horror movies.

One-third of the films screened are directed by emerging filmmakers with no more than three films. The Bronze Horse Award will be presented to winners in 16 categories.

This year's fest is dedicated to late actor David Carradine, who starred in Ingmar Bergman's The Serpent's Egg and a 1980s series of low-budget action movies by Mats Helge Olsson.

www.stockholmfilmfestival.se

RC