LevelK has acquired Swedish erotic queer drama “The Schoolmaster Games,” a film adaptation of Kristofer Folkhammar’s popular novel “Magisterlekarna,” which has just gone into production.
Written and directed by first-time director Ylva Forner, the daring film is set at the St Sebastian Academy, an all-male school where homosexuality is the norm.
The helmer described “The Schoolmaster Games” as a “melodrama for the 2020s.” “In a universe inspired by high school movies and 90s boy bands, pulsating with burning desires, we tell a story of hierarchies and power structures that has been demolished and rebuilt again,” said Forner.
Forner added that the setting of “The Schoolmaster Games” is “heightened and playfully camp, but as the story unravels, the film’s unique Academy becomes a mirror of our everyday world and turns into a conversation about the deep universal urge to belong to something – someone – and to be loved for who you really are.”
The film is headlined by a young cast of up-and-coming actors, including Christian Arnold (“The House That Jack Built”) and Johan Ehn (“Alena”).
Forner, who is also an actress, previously wrote and directed five short films and was awarded the SWEA Los Angeles Film Scholarship in 2009. She was also part of Berlinale Talent Campus that same year. Forner has worked in the film industry as head of production at Sweden’s radio production company filt AB, and as a senior producer at the production company Film and Tell.
“The Schoolmaster Games” is produced by Sofia Ferguson for Northern Fable. The film is funded by the Swedish Film Institute and SVT within the Moving Sweden scheme. “The Schoolmaster Games” started filming on Monday. A local theatrical release is planned for fall of 2021.
LevelK’s current sales slate also includes Jub Clerc’s debut feature “Sweet As,” a coming-of-age tale about a 15-year-old Indigenous girl.