tsatsiki, mum and the policeman

The first we see of Tsatsiki, he is slipping into an empty swimming pool in a quiet Stockholm suburb. Swiftly changing into his swimming costume, he dons a face mask, grasps a couple of weights, takes a deep breath, jumps in and sinks slowly to the bottom. After a few seconds, it becomes clear that all he is doing is trying to beat his own record for holding his breath. It’s something most small boys do, but for Tsatsiki it’s all part of a training programme designed to make him a better underwater swimmer. Like his father, who he’s never met - who doesn’t even know he has a son. His father who lives in Greece, where he makes a living diving in the sea, catching octopuses. Tsatsiki knows all this because his mother told him - he has a photo of his father, standing by the sea, holding up an octopus. Tsatsiki’s face - cheeky grin, teeth slightly crooked because they’re still growing, laughing brown eyes, hair teased up into an improbable, Tintin-like quiff - could be seen all over Berlin during this February’s festival. Before Christmas, he had already become something of a phenomenon in Sweden, where the film in which he is featured, Tsatsiki, Mum and the Policeman, proved one of the year’s biggest hits. In real life, of course, his name is not Tsatsiki: it’s Samuel Haus. He was eight years old when the film was made and goes to Stockholm’s German school (which is why he was able to impress Berlin audiences with his fluency). This is the first time he’s ever been in a film. And what a film: Tsatsiki, Mum and the Policeman (Tsatsiki, morsan & polisen in Swedish) is that all-too rare occurrence: a movie about kids which has consistently attracted adult audiences. Having opened last October, it is still out there in Sweden six months later with 50 prints. “I’ve met a lot of parents who thought it would be just another kids’ film,” says producer Anne Ingvar, “so they went along with their children, bought their popcorn and then suddenly found themselves watching a film they really liked. In fact, adults without kids have been going to see it, too!” As if to prove Ingvar’s point, Tsatsiki recently walked away with all the awards for which it was nominated - Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Cinematography - at Sweden’s National Film Awards, the local equivalent of the Oscars. And that’s not in the ‘Children’s Film’ category, either: Tsatsiki was the outright winner from among all the Swedish films released during 1999. Other prizes have included the ‘Crystal Bear’ (top award) and the Grand Jury Prize at the Children’s Film Festival (Kinderfilmfest) in Berlin, plus Best Swedish Film of 1999 nods from the Association of Swedish Film Reviewers, the FilmFest Örebro and Sweden’s entertainment paper, Nöjesguiden. Ingvar herself won a prize at the BUFF Children’s Film Festival in Sweden. As for young Samuel Haus, he was given a Golden Sun for his “power in living the part and his charm” by Swedish TV4’s ‘Morning News’ programme. The film’s success may now have gone further than Ingvar ever imagined, but it didn’t come as a complete surprise to her: she has been working on Tsatsiki since the autumn of 1995, when the production company she heads, Felicia Film, bought two bestselling Swedish children’s books by Moni Nilsson-Brännström. Tsatsiki och morsan and Tsatsiki och farsan dealt with the relationship between an eight-year-old boy who has grown up in Sweden but whose father is Greek - the result of a holiday romance between his mother, Tina, an aspiring rock musician, and a local fisherman. The first book was about Tsatsiki’s relationship with his mother, the second about his determination to get to know his father.