“No one understands that Karl wants to help.” Sovereign Film Distribution in the UK debuted their official trailer for an indie film from Sweden titled Redoubt (in English), also called Värn (or Protect) in Swedish. This premiered at the 2025 San Sebastian Film Festival and it also played at the London Film Festival last fall. During the peak of the Cold War, a Swedish farmhand transforms his house into a community shelter, his fixation contrasting with everyday rural life, captured in quite striking black & white imagery. He gathers scrap-metal & casts it into the walls to build a fortress meant to protect him & his neighbors. His efforts are met with puzzlement by everyone but the children. Described in reviews: “Writer-director John Skoog casts Lavant as a real-life backwoods eccentric from Swedish history in this dramatically thin but compellingly bizarre Cold War drama.” Redoubt stars acclaimed French actor Denis Lavant as the real life Swedish man Karl-Göran Persson, also joined by Agnieszka Podsiadlik, Livia Millhagen, and Aron Skoog. Almost anything with Denis Lavant in it is worth watching – I’m quite curious to see where this story goes with him. // Continue Reading ›
