The War Game

11-year-old Malte is a newcomer to an unnamed town in Skåne. He is met by a sort of war zone, where two rival gangs of children are battling it out for the local skate hall. Malte’s big hero is the mathematician John Nash, and he soon becomes a strategic leader of sorts for one of the gangs. The cast is all children, but the action of the film still has a dark feel to it. Visually as well as thematically this is what it might look like if you took one half Let The Right One In to one half Moonrise Kingdom.

Director Kapetanovic turns out to be a brilliant director of children, and gets realistic and engaging interpretations out of his cast. Especially impressive is Loke Hellberg as Malte, and Emilio Silva who plays the rival gang leader Omar. The film subtly raise questions about how conflicts between friends and neighbours come to be. Kapetanovic himself has stated that he’s been inspired by his own experiences from growing up in Balkan, and how opposing groups formed there before the war.