Published by Swedish News. Volume 144 No. 22, December 30, 2016. Price per copy $3.50.
celebrating 145 years When you read this we will be entering 2017 and our 145th year of consecutive publishing at Nordstjernan – that’s 145 years of service to readers in several generations. While most changes throughout our history have been behind the scenes—from longhand writing to a typewriter (after its invention in 1878); from pages worked backward by hand due to the direct printing process to the first typesetters, then a giant step to digital typesetting, working on computers and today’s seamless connection with printers directly from our screens—with this issue change is coming to our actual pages. We’ve seen growth in readership over the last few years, especially after adding color on a select few pages. To acknowledge and celebrate our growth and our 145th year of service we felt the time was right for an upgrade. This is only the second time in history we’re changing size—the last time was in June 1971 when we went from a broadsheet size to tabloid. This time is almost as drastic since, to accommodate color on all pages
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A Man Called Ove wins Best Comedy For the second year in a row Sweden wins Best European Comedy at EFA — the European Oscars. In 2015 it was Roy Andersson’s A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence that got the prestigious award, and this year Sweden’s box office success A Man Called Ove, directed
Actor Rolf Lassgård, director Hannes Holm and producer Annica Bellander Rune
Nordic films light up the screen at the Nordic Lights Festival in Seattle, Washington. / p. 9
by Hannes Holm, received the statuette for Best European Comedy at the gala ceremony held in Wrocław, Poland. A Man Called Ove has been seen by 1.7 million moviegoers in Sweden alone (population 10 million). The film, the Swedish Oscar entry in 2016, is number three on the list for most successful Swedish films ever domestically, and no other film has tempted more people to the cinemas in the past 45 years. It has not only been a hit domestically, but it has also been on the New York Times best seller list for 46 weeks. The drama comedy is based on Fredrik Backman’s successful novel with the same title which we reviewed in issue 16 this year. It tells the story of 59-year-old Ove (Rolf Lassgård), a grumpy old man, an isolated retiree with strict principles and a short fuse, who spends his days enforcing block association rules that only he continues on page 4
A Swedish architect designs her own home with modern simplicity and affordability in mind. / p. 12
Let’s Make it Good Nordstjernan will celebrate 145 years of being a newspaper in 2017! Through all these years, in order to stay relevant, we’ve had to embrace change, constantly adapt, invent and reinvent ourselves. As we roll out this new format, please know we’ve worked hard to keep our traditional newspaper feeling in content and design, but it’s also a work in progress: After many decades of doing it a certain way, it may take more than one issue to settle into a layout we want to look at for some years to come. Change is always what we make of it. Fortunately, knowing change is good if we make it so — and that our readers are great — we look forward to this opportunity to bring you all the content you’ve always enjoyed but in a new and improved format. Förändring är bra (change is good). We hope you think so, too.
Trends that will affect us all, as interpreted by Sweden’s most renowned trend analysts. / p. 5