The Brothers Lionheart is a 1977 Swedish fantasy film directed by Olle Hellbom

Olle Hellbom

Nils Olof "Olle" Hellbom was a Swedish film director, producer, and writer. He is most famous for directing films based on novels by Astrid Lindgren.-Director:* 1957 - Mästerdetektiven lever farligt* 1959 - Raggare!...

 and based on the book The Brothers Lionheart

The Brothers Lionheart

The Brothers Lionheart is a children's fantasy novel written by Astrid Lindgren. It was published in the fall of 1973 and has been translated into 46 languages. Many of its themes are unusually dark and heavy for the children's book genre. Disease, death, tyranny, betrayal and rebellion are some...

by Astrid Lindgren

Astrid Lindgren

Astrid Anna Emilia Lindgren , 14 November 1907 – 28 January 2002) was a Swedish author and screenwriter who is the world's 25th most translated author and has sold roughly 145 million copies worldwide...

. It won Sweden's Guldbagge Award

Guldbagge Award

The Guldbagge Award is an official Swedish film award awarded annually since 1964 by the Swedish Film Institute.-Etymology:Guldbagge is the Swedish name for Cetonia aurata, a beetle also known as rose chafer. The name of the award could also be interpreted as a play on the Swedish word skalbagge,...

 for Best Direction in 1978.

Cast

• Lars Söderdahl as Karl "Skorpan" Lion(-heart)
• Staffan Götestam as Jonatan Lion(-heart)
• Allan Edwall
  Allan Edwall
  Johan Allan Edwall was a Swedish actor, director, author, composer and singer, best-known outside Sweden for the small roles he played in some of Ingmar Bergman's films such as Fanny and Alexander...
  
   as Mattias
• Gunn Wållgren
  Gunn Wållgren
  Gunn Wållgren, born Gunnel Margaret Haraldsdotter Wållgren , was a Swedish actress.Considered one of Sweden's finest and also to date most appreciated actresses, Wållgren was famous for her fragile and sensual way of acting, her warm and rich inner soulfulness, and her never failing ability of...
  
   as Sofia
• Folke Hjort as Jossi
• Per Oscarsson
  Per Oscarsson
  - External links :...
  
   as Orvar
• Tommy Johnson as Hubert
• Jan Nygren as Veder
• Michael "Micha" Gabay as Kader
• Georg Årlin
  Georg Årlin
  Georg Adolf Wilhelm Årlin was a Swedish film actor who appeared in 50 films between 1940 and 1988.A native of the southern city of Karlskrona, renowned as Sweden's only baroque city and site of the country's sole remaining naval base, Georg Årlin died in Lövestad at the age of 75.-Selected...
  
   as Tengil
  Tengil
  Tengil is a fictional character and the main antagonist of The Brothers Lionheart, a Swedish children's novel by Astrid Lindgren.Tengil is the evil ruler of the paradise-like "Valley of the Roses Thorn" in Nangijala. He resides in his own land of Karmanjaka, from which he oppresses the people and...
  
  
• Bertil Norström as Pjuke

Production

The film was shot in Sweden, Denmark

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 and Iceland

Iceland

Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...

. Filming locations included Stockholm

Stockholm

Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...

 and Skåne County

Skåne County

Skåne County is the southernmost administrative county or län, of Sweden, basically corresponding to the historical province Scania. It borders the counties of Halland, Kronoberg and Blekinge. The seat of residence for the Skåne Governor is the town of Malmö...

 in Sweden, Århus in Jutland

Jutland

Jutland , historically also called Cimbria, is the name of the peninsula that juts out in Northern Europe toward the rest of Scandinavia, forming the mainland part of Denmark. It has the North Sea to its west, Kattegat and Skagerrak to its north, the Baltic Sea to its east, and the Danish–German...

, and in Iceland.

Box office

In Sweden, the film grossed SEK

Swedish krona

The krona has been the currency of Sweden since 1873. Both the ISO code "SEK" and currency sign "kr" are in common use; the former precedes or follows the value, the latter usually follows it, but especially in the past, it sometimes preceded the value...

 8,963,000 at the box office. Its screenings were attended by 553,000 people.

Critical response

The film was well-received by Swedish critics. Often interpreting the film in contemporary terms, they compared Staffan Götestam's portrayal of Jonatan to Che Guevara

Che Guevara

Ernesto "Che" Guevara , commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist...

, and Georg Årlin's portrayal of Tengil to Hitler, Stalin, Pinochet, Richard Nixon

Richard Nixon

Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...

 and Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...

.

Accolades

• 1978 Guldbagge Award
  Guldbagge Award
  The Guldbagge Award is an official Swedish film award awarded annually since 1964 by the Swedish Film Institute.-Etymology:Guldbagge is the Swedish name for Cetonia aurata, a beetle also known as rose chafer. The name of the award could also be interpreted as a play on the Swedish word skalbagge,...
  
   for Best Direction (Olle Hellbom)
• 1978 Berlin International Film Festival
  28th Berlin International Film Festival
  The 28th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from February 22 to March 5, 1978. This was the first year the festival was held in February.-Jury:* Patricia Highsmith * Sergio Leone* Theodoros Angelopoulos* Jacques Rozier...
  
  , OCIC Award (Special Mention)
• Golden Bear
  Golden Bear
  According to legend, the Golden Bear was a large golden Ursus arctos. Members of the Ursus arctos species can reach masses of . The Grizzly Bear and the Kodiak Bear are North American subspecies of the Brown Bear....
  
   nomination (Olle Hellbom)
• 1982 Fantafestival, Best Direction (Olle Hellbom)