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The Guldbagge Award (Swedish: Guldbaggen) is the official Swedish film award, awarded annually since 1964 by the Swedish Film Institute.

The name of the award is a play on the Swedish word skalbagge, which means beetle. The compound part skal, (meaning carapace or shell), has in the name Guldbagge been changed into guld (gold), giving the award a name that could be roughly translated into Golden Beetle.

The award is given out to the best film-related efforts in the following categories:

• Best Film
• Best Directing
• Best Screenplay
• Best Cinematography
• Best Actress in a leading role
• Best Actor in a leading role
• Best Supporting actress
• Best Supporting actor
• Best Foreign picture (In which the country of production, and not the language of the film - in contrast to nominations for the North American Academy Award - is what makes the film a potential nominee)
• Best Short film
• Best Documentary
• Honorary Award

The prize itself, a small statue in the shape of a beetle, is made in male and female versions. The male beetle is equipped with a small penis on the underside. The female beetle does not have a penis, nor does it have any other form of gender-specific anatomy.^{[citation needed]}

An inscription of the name of the award's winner, and the category in question, is glued to the underside of the beetle. Every beetle is created individually by the artist Karl-Axel Pehrson, the original designer.

In early 2005, the award received some criticism, since only three of the 33 Swedish feature films that premiered in 2004 received nominations in seven main categories (film, direction, actor, actress, supporting actor, supporting actress, screenplay) and it was made public that some of the jury members hadn't seen all 33 films.

• the Swedish Film Institute - Official website