Djuren/ The Animals
A little boy has made a parachute for his hamster. That could happen in any family. But what could not happen in any family? The short film ’The Animals’ is a drawn saga about the life and death of some pets. It is a naive story about children, animals and parents. But under the tragicomic surface lies bigger issues of empathy, guilt and normality.

Sonia Hedstrand
Sonia Hedstrand was born in 1975. She has been working as a reporter and writer for different magazines and daily press, including Sweden's largest newspaper Dagens Nyheter, where she was writing about art and social issues. Together with artist Åsa Elzén, Sonia Hedstrand made the large video document of the feminist movement in Stockholm, 'A year of sisterhood', between 2003 and 2005. The project was partly financed by the Swedish art council, and has been showed extensively in Sweden and abroad. Hedstrand continued to evolve her knowledge in film and video at a one year documentary film course at Biskops Arnö school. By autumn 2006 she started the 5 year education in fine arts at the Royal Art Academy in Stockholm, where she is working with video art. Sonia Hedstrand's short films often deal with storytelling, and almost all are quite brutal stories from reality, told in calm voice-over. Her films deal with issues of guilt, responsibility and sorrow. How to tell a long story in few words is an issue that occupies the artist. In 2007 Sonia Hedstrand won first prize at the "Filmvideoartfestival" in Uppsala with her film 'The Animals', also shown in video art festival Loop at Barcelona 2007.