Levan Akin (born 14 December 1979) is a Swedish

film director A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, p ...

and

screenwriter A screenplay writer (also called screenwriter, scriptwriter, scribe or scenarist) is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs and video games, are based. ...

, best known for his film ''

And Then We Danced ''And Then We Danced'' ( ka, და ჩვენ ვიცეკვეთ, ) is a 2019 Georgian drama film directed by Levan Akin. It was premiered in the Directors' Fortnight section at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival where it received a fifteen- ...

'', that received critical acclaim and won the 2019

Guldbagge Award for Best Film The Guldbagge for Best Film is a Swedish film award presented annually by the Swedish Film Institute (SFI) as part of the Guldbagge Awards (Swedish: "Guldbaggen") to the best Swedish motion picture of the year. Winners and nominees Each Guldba ...

Biography

Levan Akin was born and raised in

Tumba, Sweden Tumba is a bimunicipal locality and the seat of Botkyrka Municipality in Stockholm County, Sweden with 37,852 inhabitants in 2010. A part of its statistical urban area, called Rönninge, is in Salem Municipality. The population is 35,311 (2005). ...

. His parents, of Georgian origin, had moved to Sweden in the 1960s, when Georgia was one of the republics of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

. Levan Akin returns to Georgia every year with his sister for the summer holidays. There he consolidates his knowledge of Georgian culture and the practice of the

Georgian language Georgian (, , ) is the most widely-spoken Kartvelian language, and serves as the literary language or lingua franca for speakers of related languages. It is the official language of Georgia and the native or primary language of 87.6% of its p ...

Career

Levan Akin started out as an assistant director in film productions, mainly at

Sveriges Television Sveriges Television AB ("Sweden's Television Stock Company"), shortened to SVT (), is the Sweden, Swedish national public broadcasting, public television broadcaster, funded by a public service tax on personal income set by the Riksdag (national ...

. He worked at Studio 24 for the production of ''

You, the Living ''You, the Living'' ( sv, Du levande) is a 2007 Swedish black comedy-drama film written and directed by Roy Andersson. The film is an exploration of the "grandeur of existence," centered on the lives of a group of individuals, such as an overweigh ...

'' (''Du Levande'') by Roy Andersson (2007). In 2008, he won two awards at the

Hamburg Film Festival FILMFEST HAMBURG is an international film festival in Hamburg, the third-largest of its kind in Germany (after Berlin and Munich). It shows national and international feature and documentary films in eleven sections. The range of the program stret ...

alongside film designer and producer Erika Stark for the short film ''De sista sakerna'' (2008). Levan Akin then directed series such as ''Second Avenue'' (''Andra Avenyn'', 2008–2010), ''Livet i Fagervik'' (2009), ''Anno 1790'' (2011) and ''Real Humans'' (''Äkta människor'', 2012) for the television channel Sveriges Television. In autumn 2011, his first feature film ''Katinkas kalas'', premiered at the Stockholm International Film Festival. The scenario was based on the inner tensions of a group of young people celebrating a birthday on a summer night. Three of the cast, mostly not known to the wider public, received nominations for the L'Oréal Paris Rising Star award, and Yohanna Idha was nominated for 2013 Guldbagge Award as Best Supporting Actress. In 2019, Levan Akin's second film ''

'' was released to critical acclaim. It was premiered in the

Directors' Fortnight The Directors' Fortnight (french: Quinzaine des Réalisateurs) is an independent selection of the Cannes Film Festival. It was started in 1969 by the French Directors Guild after the events of May 1968 resulted in cancellation of the Cannes festiv ...

section at the

2019 Cannes Film Festival The 72nd annual Cannes Film Festival took place from 14 to 25 May 2019. Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu served as jury president. The Palme d'Or went to the South Korean film ''Parasite'', directed by Bong Joon-ho; Bong became t ...

where it received a fifteen-minute

standing ovation A standing ovation is a form of applause where members of a seated audience stand up while applauding after extraordinary performances of particularly high acclaim. In Ancient Rome returning military commanders (such as Marcus Licinius Crassus a ...

. Set in Georgia, the film follows Merab, a student from a Georgian traditional dance school who falls in love with his male rival. The Georgian Orthodox Church officially expressed its disapproval of the promotion and screening of the film, and the release of the film in November 2019 caused riots in

Tbilisi Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), is the Capital city, capital and the List of cities and towns in Georgia (country), largest city of Georgia (country), Georgia, lying on the ...

and

Batumi Batumi (; ka, ბათუმი ) is the second largest city of Georgia and the capital of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara, located on the coast of the Black Sea in Georgia's southwest. It is situated in a subtropical zone at the foot of th ...

. In June 2020, Levan Akin was selected as a member of the

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS, often pronounced ; also known as simply the Academy or the Motion Picture Academy) is a professional honorary organization with the stated goal of advancing the arts and sciences of motio ...

Filmography

Director

Feature films

* 2011: ''Katinkas kalas'' * 2015: '' The Circle * 2019: ''

Short film

* 2008: ''De sista sakerna''

TV shows

* 2007: ''Labyrint mobisodes'' * 2008–2010: ''Second Avenue'' (''Andra Avenyn'') (10 episodes) * 2009: ''Livet i Fagervik'' (3 episodes) * 2011: ''Anno 1790'' (3 episodes) * 2012: ''Real Humans'' (''Äkta människor'') (20 episodes) * 2022: ''Interview with the Vampire'' (2 episodes)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Akin, Levan 1979 births Living people Swedish film directors Swedish screenwriters Swedish television directors Swedish television writers Best Screenplay Guldbagge Award winners People from Tumba, Sweden Swedish people of Georgian descent