PANEL TALK Malmö 2026 - IFEMA+ International Female Film Festival Malmö

Panel Talk: The collaboration between Cinematographer and Director

Open conversation around the collaboration between the cinematographer and the director, moderated by Klara Nilsson Grunning

moderator

Klara Nilsson Grunning

Klara Nilsson Grunning is an Emmy Award winner with over 30 years of experience in the industry. She has worked as a decision-maker and producer in the United States for 20 years, and has for the past 15 years has been based in Malmö, working as a film commissioner for the Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian film institutes. Currently, she serves as a film commissioner for fiction, documentaries, series, and games at Vestnorsk Filmsenter in Bergen, and is a member of the editorial board for the Public Service Fund at the Danish Film Institute.

Participants:

Frida Kempff, Director

Frida is a Swedish director and scriptwriter with a bachelor’s degree from Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts. Her films have been screened and awarded at the main festivals, including Cannes, TIFF, Sundance, Telluride, IDFA, London IFF and Gothenburg.

Manal Masri, Director

Manal Masri is a director and producer who moves between documentary and fiction-based storytelling. She has directed three documentaries and a series, with her debut film Letter to a Serial Killer receiving a Guldbagge nomination (2018). Her latest film Legacy premiered at CPH:DOX 2025.

Ita Zbroniec-Zajt, Cinematographer

Ita Zbroniec-Zajt is a Polish-Swedish cinematographer trained at the prestigious National Film School in Lodz, Poland. In 2017, she became the first woman to win a Guldbagge for best cinematography. The year before, she became the first cinematographer to receive the Bo Widerberg Scholarship at the Båstad Film Festival. In 2019, she won the Sven Nykvist Cinematography Award at the Gothenburg Film Festival for her work on “Säsong”. She recently worked as a cinematographer on John Skoog’s feature film VÄRN, which will be released in Swedish cinemas in the spring of 2026.

Sophia Olsson, Cinematographer

Sophia Olsson is an Emmy Award nominated cinematographer for “The Crown” and studied cinematography at the National Film School of Denmark. Her next feature coming up is with director Amanda Kernell. Their collaboration started with Amanda’s debut “Sami blood” and continued with “Charter” for which Sophia won a Guldbagge. Her latest feature film with her long time Icelandic collaborator director Runar Runarsson, “When the light breaks”, competed at Cannes film festival. She has won the Sven Nyqvist award two times.