After several Swedish movies ended up on The Pirate Bay, an anti-piracy tracking company says it has found the source of the leaks. But in surprise twist, rather than pointing the finger at the usual suspects, the company says the movies came from a most unlikely location - the servers of the Swedish Film Institute.

“The Swedish Film Institute’s goal is to support the production, distribution and display of valuable films, to preserve and make accessible Swedish film heritage and to represent Swedish cinema internationally,” says a notice on the Institute’s site.

But in a bizarre turn of events, the Institute appears to have achieved their mission to promote Swedish films by a most unusual and controversial route.

Following an audit of IP addresses sharing movies online, investigators from anti-piracy company DoubleTrace discovered that IP addresses in the BitTorrent swarms of several local movies belonged to none other than the Swedish Film Institute (SFI).

Needless to say, the movies leaked from SFI ended up on The Pirate Bay.

In response to the revelations, last Wednesday SFI managing director Bengt Toll held a staff crisis meeting where he warned employees not to talk publicly on the issue without consulting him.

However, when Swedish news outlet Aftonbladet contacted Toll this Monday to find out if the allegations of movie leaks from SFI were true, he replied: “No, No.”

Yesterday, Toll – who is now reportedly in sensitive discussions with film producers, lawyers and IT experts – gave a different impression on the developing scandal.

“I can in good conscience say, we have logged all of our computers,” he said. “We have looked through our firewall, we have looked through everything. But there is nothing.”

“Here we work in the film industry against illegal downloading and the institution we rely on most heavily is the Film Institute. If it turns out that the leaks come from here it is extremely serious,” the SFI chief added.

Toll says he has informed the Ministry of Culture and engaged an independent company to audit the organization’s security. In the meantime, representatives from the film industry are understandably unhappy.

“I will request consultations with [SFI] about what the hell this is all about,” said former Economy Minister and President of Film Producers, Bjorn Rosengren. “I want the cards on the table, now.”

The investigation into the leaks, which is already underway, is said to be focusing on two SFI employees.