SF Studios is a Swedish film and television production and distribution company (both
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
and international) with headquarters in
Stockholm and local offices in
Oslo
Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population ...
,
Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...
,
Helsinki
Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the capital, primate, and most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of Uusimaa in southern Finland, and has a population of . The city ...
and
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
. The studio is owned by Nordic media conglomerate, the
Bonnier Group
Bonnier AB (), also the Bonnier Group, is a privately held Swedish media group of 175 companies operating in 15 countries. It is controlled by the Bonnier family.
Background
The company was founded in 1804 by Gerhard Bonnier in Copenhagen, Denma ...
. The largest film studio in Sweden, it was established on 27 December 1919 as
Aktiebolaget Svensk Filmindustri (AB Svensk Filmindustri) or Svensk Filmindustri (SF), and adopted its current name in 2016.
Overview
SF Studios was founded in 1919 through a merger between AB Svenska Biografteatern and Skandia Filmbyrå AB. From 1942 to 1961
Carl-Anders Dymling was the company's President. In 1946 the melodrama ''
Sunshine Follows Rain'' was released, earning the studio's largest profit of the
sound era
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed befor ...
. SF produced most of the films made by
Ingmar Bergman, as well as a long list of films by other filmmakers such as
Mauritz Stiller
Mauritz Stiller (born Moshe Stiller, 17 July 1883 – 18 November 1928) was a Swedish film director of Finnish Jewish origin, best known for discovering Greta Garbo and bringing her to America.
Stiller had been a pioneer of the Swedish film ...
,
Victor Sjöström,
Carl Theodor Dreyer,
Bo Widerberg
Bo Gunnar Widerberg (; 8 June 1930 – 1 May 1997) was a Swedish film director, writer, editor and actor.
Biography Early life
Widerberg was born in Malmö, Malmöhus County, Sweden.
Career
Widerberg was the director of films such as ''Rave ...
,
Lasse Hallström and
Bille August
Bille August (born 9 November 1948) is a Danish director, screenwriter, and cinematographer of film and television. In a career spanning over four decades, he has been the recipient of numerous accolades, making him one of the most acclaimed co ...
. The majority of film adaptations of the works by
children's author Astrid Lindgren have been produced by SF.
More recently, SF Studios has produced the Academy Award-nominated film
A Man Called Ove. The studio produces film and tv-series and has production divisions in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and since 2017 in the United Kingdom. In 2020, SF Studios released its first international film production
Horizon Line
''Horizon Line'' is a 2020 English-language Swedish adventure thriller film directed by Mikael Marcimain and starring Alexander Dreymon, Allison Williams and Keith David. The film concentrates on a pair that desperately struggles to survive, fly ...
.
SF also distributes foreign films in the
Nordic countries and has deals with
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...
,
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 ...
,
Sony Pictures and
STX Entertainment in the United States and
StudioCanal
StudioCanal S.A.S. (formerly known as Le Studio Canal+, Canal Plus, Canal+ Distribution, Canal+ D.A., Canal+ Production, and Canal+ Image and also known as StudioCanal International) is a French film production and distribution company that owns ...
in France.
SF was owned by from 1970 until 1973, when it was sold to the newspaper firm
Dagens Nyheter
''Dagens Nyheter'' (, ), abbreviated ''DN'', is a daily newspaper in Sweden. It is published in Stockholm and aspires to full national and international coverage, and is widely considered Sweden's newspaper of record.
History and profile
' ...
. Since 1983 SF has been owned by the
Bonnier Group
Bonnier AB (), also the Bonnier Group, is a privately held Swedish media group of 175 companies operating in 15 countries. It is controlled by the Bonnier family.
Background
The company was founded in 1804 by Gerhard Bonnier in Copenhagen, Denma ...
. In 1998, SF was divided into two separate companies, the production and distribution company AB Svensk Filmindustri and the cinema chain SF Bio (later
Filmstaden)
In 2020, SF had linked a distribution deal with
Universal Pictures Home Entertainment
Universal Pictures Home Entertainment (formerly Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Universal Studios Home Video, MCA/Universal Home Video, MCA Home Video, MCA Videodisc and MCA Videocassette, Inc.) is the home video distribution division of Am ...
to handle titles across the Nordic and Baltic regions.
See also
*
Filmstaden
*
SF Anytime
SF Anytime is a video on demand service owned by Bonnier Group, Bonnier available in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden and primarily offering movies. It was launched in 2002 and was then only available on the Internet. In January 2005, the servic ...
*
SF Bio
Filmstaden AB (formerly SF Bio AB ) is Sweden's largest cinema chain, and was founded in 1998 after Svensk Filmindustri was split into SF and SF Bio. The company is owned by the european group Odeon Cinemas Group, which has been owned by the worl ...
*
SF Film
References
Bibliography
* Gunnar Iverson, Astrid Soderbergh Widding & Tytti Soila. ''Nordic National Cinemas''. Routledge, 2005.
Further reading
New York Times: American Rights to Swedish FilmRocky Mountain News: Aspen theater wins rights to Ingmar Bergman film catalogSF i tvist om sin filmkatalog i USA
External links
*
SF Bio.seSF International Sales
{{DEFAULTSORT:SF Studios
Bonnier Group
Cinemas and movie theaters chains
Film distributors
Film production companies of Sweden
Swedish film studios
Mass media companies established in 1919
Swedish companies established in 1919
Companies based in Stockholm
1983 mergers and acquisitions