Stefan Jarl

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Stefan Jarl, born in 1941, is the most prominent of the Scandinavian documentary film makers and recipient of several awards, among them the European Film Academy Felix Award, three Golden Beetles (“Guldbaggar”), the Swedish equivalent to the Oscar and the International Documentary Associations Award, called the “Oscar of documentary film”.


He had the renowned documentary director Arne Sucksdorff as teacher and has been production manager for several Swedish directors, among them Bo Widerberg. His feature film debut came in 1968 with “They Call Us Misfits” (together with Jan Lindqvist), which came to be the first part in a trilogy. The other parts came in 1979, with
“A decent life” and in 1992, with “Misfits to Yuppies”. With this trilogy he opened up a new path in Swedish cinema.

His films have regularly been chosen for Forum of New Cinema at the Berlin Film Festival. A restrospective of his work has toured the World, and at the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado he was awarded the Silver Medallion as “one of Europe´s leading documentary film makers.”