It’s all a bit of a cinematic jigsaw puzzle – 400 screenings of 180 films to be allocated to eight cinemas over 12 days. There are a lot of things to take into consideration, but Git Scheynius loves the challenge. The head honcho of the Stockholm Film Festival is going through the process for the 24th time and her energy and hunger do not seem to be on the wane.

”The preparations tend to get quite cumbersome here in the fall, but when the festival actually begins I usually experience such a rush of energy that the adrenalin lasts all through the festival, and even stretches a further couple of weeks,” she says while catching her breath.

The Stockholm Film Festival has a successful missionary, in terms of bringing good film experiences to the people of Stockholm. This year the spotlight is on freedom and how film as an art form can foster change. Git, who watches approximately 200 films per year, quite evidently loves the task she has assigned herself.

Do you still enjoy doing this as much as before?

I actually do! Maybe even more. It’s been a long voyage that hasn’t always been so simple. You know how it is with any cultural project – a lack of resources means it’s tough to reach high qualitative standards with a small budget. The problem is that I haven’t been prepared to compromise at all on the standards. We have always known what we’ve wanted and that is high-quality international film. And that is not going to come for free.

Do you and the festival have the same aim and ambition as when you started out in the 90s or have the goalposts been moved in accordance with the festival growing bigger?

The first aim was just to be able to present a good international festival. We have added things along the way like the Junior section for kids, and due to the lack of coverage we started our own magazine. The lack of distribution of high-quality films made us start our distribution company but the vision is still the same as at the outset – to present quality film to a wide audience. We want to showcase films that regenerate film as a medium, and at the same time create a platform where you can debate film and meet other like-minded people. That is still the case and a common denominator for all that we do.

You want to entice a wider audience to come see quality film, the kind of film they perhaps normally wouldn’t go and see. How do you go about doing that?

I really don’t like to use the expressions ‘wide’ and ‘narrow’ appeal but I suppose we present some films that might be perceived as for a wider audience and when we have the audience onboard we can present the more ‘narrow’ films for the same people.

I think our mix is what appeals to people and high-quality cinema has never been more popular than now. After so many years, we are met with less suspicion, and that the average number of films per festival-goer has reached seven is a testament to that.

How many visitors do you actually have now?

130.000 in total if you include the other screenings we have during the full year. What is so exciting with film and what makes it appealing to so many is that if you go to a festival that has work from 52 countries, it’s like travelling around the globe. I think the people coming to our festival are curious about the world they live in. Normally, there’s maybe only 10 percent of the films in the cinemas that aren’t Anglo-Saxon.

When you started working on this project in a tiny apartment 20 some years ago, could you have imagined yourself still doing this today?

Haha, no way. But I knew it would take a long while before we made ends meet, and from being a cultural producer and journalist I knew that a project on this scale was what I wanted to do. It actually took us 12 years to break even. And after those 12 years you naturally want to enjoy the small bit of success you actually have achieved so you keep going. This is too much fun for me to do anything else. And personally it’s a platform to experience so many things, I have the privilege to bring over the directors and actors I admire and I experience new things every year.

This year’s theme is freedom. What’s your incentive behind that subject and what will it mean to this year’s festival?

I thought there was reason to question what film, as well as festivals, could do for freedom. How much can film influence individual freedom, the countries we live in or existing dictatorships? We began to put together the Spotlight section of the festival with pictures that strongly affect the times we are living in. One example being the Iranian film Manuscripts Don’t Burn, which got the critic’s award in Cannes. When we invited the director it turned out that he was forbidden to travel abroad by the Iranian government. It’s obvious that many regimes restrict the freedom of movement for artists, so we have accentuated this by inviting Ai Weiwei to be on our jury. He has obviously made remarks critical of his regime and will not be able to travel here from China but will participate in the jury work anyway. “So there will be an empty chair where I would have been sitting. I want to make that chair myself,” he said. He’ll send us the chair and it will be on display. They cannot shut this man up, he’s been in prison and is always pursued by the authorities.

We will also be having a seminar around the subject with Irishman Mark Cousin who made the popular Story of Film series on TV. It will be fantastic to speak to him about film and freedom. He usually presents a wider perspective on how film exerts influence. He’s a master at finding the very moment, the tipping points, in film history, when something changes in our consciousness and explains it in a way that everyone understands.

Another example on the subject of freedom and the importance of film is how we view an event like the Arab Spring. First we have the news coverage. The documentaries follow to give us a wider perspective and then, as the third wave, we get the feature films that dramatize events and dig deeper. It’s usually not until you see them that you grasp a full understanding of the subject in its entirety. 9/11 is another example of that.

How do you view Swedish filmmaking?

When we started out we were disappointed at the meagre selection. We wanted to raise the tempo as well as the quality in Stockholm. It took a long time, maybe seven years, and then something happened. We got films that were independent. That had a tone that appealed to us and that was enormously satisfying. Finally we had something to be proud of. But we are a small country, and there is obviously a great need for money.

The question is if the money that is available is channelled in right direction?

The Swedish Film Institute has for too long had the idea to channel all the money into the bigger productions for them to actually come off. That might be fine, but it can’t be at the detriment of the young talents we have. I think we should do more to support the young – a serious experiment that works with the young talent.

And it’s a fact that the film industry have been very male-oriented and that’s why we initiated our bursary for female directors. It won’t alter much of the goings-on but it puts the spotlight at the new female talent.

And what are your thoughts on Stockholm’s cultural scene in general?

Well, it’s a lot better now than it was 20 years ago. We have really made inroads on design, fashion and food. We have become more international and we are not perceived as this little outpost in the North anymore. We have opened ourselves up to both the East and the West. This obviously creates competition to us from other cultural happenings, but that should work as fuel for us to get even better.

I was thinking about all the prominent guests the festival has attracted through the years. It is a fairly small festival compared to the likes of Venice and Cannes and I don’t know the standing you enjoy, but the directors who come here – how hard are they to convince?

It’s not easy of course, directors and actors are very busy people. Some is down to the strength of the festival and

sometimes you are just lucky – I ran into Dennis Hopper in Cannes. And sometimes you have to write beautiful letters for several years. I never thought I would convince Lauren Bacall to come, it took a few years, but it was very cool when it came off. Our ambitions are very high in that area because we value the meetings between the people in the industry and the audience who really seem to enjoy it so much. And the good thing is that the guests are always very happy about being here. Apart from the obvious – that they point out that Stockholm is very beautiful – they say that the Stockholm audience ask such good and knowledgeable questions.

Finally, what’s your absolute favourite film that has been screened at the festival through these 24 years?

Haha, that question is way too hard to answer. But I suppose that the first festival was special and the opening film was David Lynch’s Wild At Heart. And since we managed to have him over as a guest later on, it makes it a great story in the history of our festival.