Glowing Stars
| Glowing Stars | |
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Swedish DVD cover, featuring Jenna (left) and Ullis (right)
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| Directed by | Lisa Siwe |
| Produced by | Anders Landström |
| Screenplay by | Linn Gottfridsson |
| Based on |
In the Ceiling the Stars Are Shining by Johanna Thydell |
| Starring | Josefine Mattsson Mika Berndtsdotter Ahlén Annika Hallin |
| Music by | Kalle Bäccman |
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Production
company |
Filmlance International AB
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| Distributed by | Sandrew Metronome Distribution Sverige AB |
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Release date
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Running time
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89 minutes |
| Country | Sweden |
| Language | Swedish |
Glowing Stars (Swedish: I taket lyser stjärnorna) is a Swedish film which was released to cinemas in Sweden on 30 January 2009, based on the award-winning novel of the same name by author Johanna Thydell. It revolves around a girl named Jenna who has to deal with her teenage life while at the same time taking care of her mother who is sick with cancer. The film was directed by Lisa Siwe and written by Linn Gottfridsson. It received critical acclaim from critics. The film won several film awards.
Jenna is a girl currently in the seventh grade. Like a normal teenage girl, she worries about her breasts not growing, why she is not as popular as Ullis, and how she can get Sakke to fall in love with her or at least notice that she exists. When Jenna's mother is diagnosed with cancer, they are forced to move to Jenna's grandmother, who Jenna finds annoying. Jenna's grandmother lives next door to Ullis, who is living with her alcoholic mother. A friendship begins to grow between Jenna and Ullis after they realize that they both have struggling mothers. Eventually, Jenna's mother passes away at the hospital.
The film deals with the difficulty of losing a loved one to death. But it is also a film about friendship, identity, and survival.
The film was directed by Lisa Siwe and written by Linn Gottfridsson. It was their feature-length film debut, and they worked closely together as a team on the film. They told the newspaper Gotlands Allehanda that they complement each other well; Siwe "has strong ideas" while Gottfridsson "is really good at psychology". They also explained that they met "thanks to a teacher at Dramatiska Institutet, who brought us together. It was a lucky match. We like the same type of films and we want to tell the same type of stories."
Siwe began reading the 2003 novel I taket lyser stjärnorna by Johanna Thydell late at night one day and she could not put it away until she had read the whole book. "I cried and cried and if my husband had not laid beside me I would have shrieked right out," she told Dagens Nyheter. After finishing the novel, Siwe received the idea to adapt it into a film together with Gottfridsson. Once they acquired the rights from the author they began planning the film. "First, Linn and I talked together on what we wanted to keep [from the novel]. The book cannot be translated into film. We have great respect for the book and the film must stand on its own legs. And even if we have [made changes to the story], we have stayed faithful to the essence," Siwe said.
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Wikipedia