SMILES OF A SCANDINAVIAN MORNING

What’s up in Scandinavian film making during these post-Bergman days?

Hope, that’s what.

Hope and hard-nosed pragmatism.

No one here is about to rival Hollywood’s massive film mill. After all, all five Nordic countries produced about 50 films in 1985 in contrast to about 250--both majors and independents--in the States.

But quantity has never been a factor in film making here.

Specialty has.

The current specialty is children’s films. Sweden’s “Ronya, the Robber’s Daughter” has been a runaway success in Europe as well as in Scandinavia, and is Sweden’s official candidate for a foreign-language film Oscar.

(It’s had three limited screenings in the States, the most recent of which was the San Diego Film Festival in mid-November. A general theatrical release is planned for spring, according to Dan McMullin, its American distributor.)

And then there’s the beloved Pippi Longstocking character, who will be making her debut on American soil before too long. Auditions for the redhaired, pigtailed pixie were completed recently, and American producer Gary Mehlman expects to begin shooting “The Adventure of Pippi Longstocking” at Fernandina Beach and Amerlia Island, Fla., in March.

Author Astrid Lindgren, who wrote “Ronya” and a string of other successful Pippi films --based on here equally popular Pippi books--for European release, is scheduled to participate in the American production.

This is not to say that kid stuff is all that’s being talked about in Northern Europe:

--Movers and shakers in the Scandinavian media are enthusiastic about the imminent addition of more television channels--commercial ones, for the first time--in both Norway and Sweden.

--They’re high on some talented young directors.

--They’re bolstered by fresh leadership in Sweden’s oldest film company.

--And, most importantly, they’re positively beaming at the big bucks that are being flashed in their direction.

Indeed, the year of 1985 will be remembered as a turnaround time in film making here. At least, that’s what the Nordic moguls are saying through their dollar-sign smiles.

The fresh sources of funds have been uncommon in these countries where films are usually subsidized by the state.

But. . . .

“Now there are private investors like banks and real estate,” said Viking Film’s Bo Jonsson, a highly regarded independent producer--one of only a few independent producers in Sweden. “There were always crazy guys, but now banks are interested. There is still no money to talk about, of course. A million-dollar budget is considered large in Scandinavia. It’s peanuts for an American company.

“But, for the first time in my life--and almost in the film life of Sweden--I made a package last year.” Jonsson’s package, which is financed by a variety of investors, consists of four films “signed and scripts more or less ready. I have work,” he said with a big smile during an interview in his small two-room office in an old building in downtown Stockholm.

Across town, in sleek new quarters in a remodeled brewery, Lennart Wiklund, the energetic 35-year-old new president of Svensk Filmindustri, Sweden’s oldest film company, proudly ticks off the list of 12 films being readied for production.

“It’s going to be tough in the coming years, but it’s much more hopeful,” he said from his gray-carpeted office whose massive windows overlook the shimmering Riddarfjarden.

While SF is not yet in the black, Wiklund said that its deficit has been reduced considerably in the year since being acquired by Bonnier, Sweden’s largest magazine publisher and its major publisher of books. The massive firm also manufactures furniture, plastic products, life jackets and software--among other things.

Wiklund, who has a background in print journalism and was running Sweden’s largest video rental business when he was tapped for his new job late in 1984, doesn’t believe in dwelling on past failures in the film industry.

“We could look in the past, but that’s uninteresting,” he said. “When you say life is hopeless, it becomes hopeless.

“We’re trying to be more optimistic--not unrealistic--because we know what we have to fight, but we think there’s a big potential.

“You have to create a new spirit, and we’re trying to do it and we are rather successful. We think we have the bridge to that success in children’s films.”

He pointed with pride to “Ronya” as the first example of this bridge. It has already won a prize at the Berlin Film Festival, and 25% of the Swedish population have seen the film to date, he said.

Three of those 12 films SF is involved with in the next year are aimed at children, Wiklund said, and Mehlman’s Pippi number is among them.

Wiklund definitely has his eyes on the children’s film market, and he’s not at all intimidated by Disney.

“Disney’s not holding up,” Wiklund observed. “I don’t feel they are emphasizing what has been the trademark of Disney films--the films for children.”

With a pragmatic eye on the SF pocketbook, Wiklund admits that the new management is “more money-oriented.”

“The Swedish Film Institute (the government-subsidized and- controlled producer and sometime co-producer of Swedish films) is there to educate, to be provocative and to find new talent.

“We, on the other hand, must be a commercial company because if we are not commercial, we will have no market.”

One of the strategies up his sleeve to get people out of their armchairs and back into movie theaters is to provide an appealing physical setting. “Who wants hard seats and sticky floors?” he asked.

SF already has opened a 15-screen multiple in Stockholm (in an existing building). Another multiscreen complex containing restaurants is in the planning stages, he said. “We are putting emphasis on moviegoing as a social event. Given the choice between staying home or going out, people always want to go out--if you give them something attractive, that is,” he said.

“If you can cultivate that (moviegoing) market--which still exists--it will be a good one. And if you produce a lot, you will have a platform for all markets.”

In Oslo, Norway, Axel Helgeland, managing director of the state-supported Norsk Film, says the film business in Norway is “into an optimistic wave, but it is a very fragile thing.”

He is encouraged by an infusion of private investment into the film business. Norway’s new prosperity in the form of oil from the North Sea has loosened up a lot of pocketbooks.

“People are willing to take risks now,” he said. “That changes things. We’ve even had banks who have invested in films,” he said.

Helgeland cited “Orion’s Belt,” a runaway hit in Scandinavia, as a current example of private investment paying off. The action thriller--whose very theme makes it unlike most Norwegian films that are heavy on social consciousness--cost $1.6 million, making it the most expensive Norwegian feature ever made, according to public figures. (It has yet to find a distributer in the States.)

Then, too, Helgeland was enthusiastic about the alliance between a Norwegian investment company and British and American film makers in the nearly $20-million production of “Revolution,” parts of which were filmed in Geiranger, a fjord village where the North American countryside was re-created. (The film opened here during the holidays.)

On a more serious note, he had some observations about the future of movie attendance.

“What can save the cinema as a social institution is the willingness of municipalities to build multiples--which exists to some extent but still needs to expand--and we need to integrate the cinema with other environments, like concerts, cafes.”

“If you can combine these things, you can save the cinema, and it’s being done here,” he said, adding that film attendance has increased 25% in the past two years.

He also sees Norway’s second television channel--there is only one at present--as a fresh outlet for film makers. (Parliament has generally endorsed the creation of a pay-TV channel, but a vote on the measure isn’t expected until early this year, Helgeland said.)

Per Haddal, culture correspondent and film critic for Aftenposten, Norway’s largest full-sized afternoon newspaper, calls this period in Norwegian film making “the most exciting new time since I don’t know when.”

“Private investment and a change in the government” are primarily responsible for Haddal’s enthusiasm.

Films are no longer drenched in social-realism or introspection, he said. “We’ve had ‘Orion’s Belt,’ a “well-made Norwegian film that was very influential in bringing people backing to the cinema.”

Over in Copenhagen, Finn Aabye, director of the Danish Film Institute for the past eight years, attributes his “very satisfied” attitude to continued government support of his budget.

“While other budgets were cut, ours remained intact,” he said during an interview in his office at the institute.

Aabye beamed as he reported on the new and young film makers who are coming out of the film school, which is located adjacent to the institute. One young graduate, Lars von Trier, won a technical award at Cannes last year for “The Element of Crime,” his first directorial effort.

“And there are more on the way,” he promised.

Now Denmark hopes to move into the limelight again by mutually promoting films with the four other Nordic countries.

“We put all our money in one bag,” he said of the cooperative venture that was launched five years ago.

“We go together to Cannes and Berlin. We hire a big flat and spend a lot of money for advertising and suddenly we had films in competition in Berlin and in Cannes. It’s a question of people cooperating to become known. It’s not just Denmark anymore. It’s Scandinavia.

“We even have film weeks in Japan, Australia, New Zealand, being together, all five countries, and I must say five because now we have Iceland, too, and they are producing good films.

“Now,” Aabye said with more than a little satisfaction, “people aren’t calling Copenhagen the capital of Sweden. We’re getting known.”