Swedish documentary filmmakers have earned a fine reputation for taking a critical look at a wide range of subjects. The Nordisk Panorama short and documentary film festival in Malmö is a perfect platform for up-and-coming directors from the Nordic countries.
"The documentary genre has a solid foothold in Sweden," says Tove Torbjörnsen (left) from the Swedish Film Institute. Filmmaker Stefan Jarl helped pave the way for a strong Swedish documentary tradition. Photos: www.sfi.se and Mark Earthy / Scanpix
Between September 26 and October 1, 2008, Nordisk Panorama screens some of the most exciting and provocative Nordic short and documentary films created during the last year. The festival started out as an industry event, but film lovers convinced the festival organizers to open it up to the public. So what makes Swedish documentaries so popular?
Powerful directors
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Swedish directors such as Stefan Jarl and Rainer Hartleb started a strong documentary trend. Jarl was heralded for his 1968 film Dom kallar oss mods (They Call Us Misfits), which looked at the lives of alienated teenagers. In 1973 Hartleb started a unique Swedish film project where he, in six films, followed a school class from the Stockholm suburb of Jordbro from their first day at school at the age of seven into their forties.
Tove Torbjörnsen, documentary consultant at the Swedish Film Institute (Svenska Filminstitutet), talks about Sweden having “particularly strong directors in the documentary genre.”
“Here, most film ideas come from the director as opposed to abroad, where they often come from the producer,” Torbjörnsen says. “The documentary genre has a solid foothold in Sweden. In fact, a number of Swedish directors of fiction have also done documentaries.”
One of Rainer Hartleb's Jordbro documentaries, En pizza i Jordbro, was awarded the Swedish Guldbagge prize in 1994. Photo: Johan Bergmark / Scanpix
A documentary film school
Tarik Saleh is a successful Swedish documentary filmmaker who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s. To him, documentaries were like mother’s milk.
“In Sweden there is a documentary tradition that influenced and helped set conditions for filmmakers of my generation,” he says. “There were a few significant documentary filmmakers — Stefan Jarl to name one — who drew hundreds of thousands of people to the movie theaters. This started a wave of documentaries, often associated with current political and activist events woldwide.
“It was like a film school, and you can see it in Swedish feature films, which often have a documentary style to them.”
Television also gave the genre a huge boost in the 1970s and 1980s, with a lot of the credit going to Jarl, Hartleb and Proel. The Swedish public service broadcaster, SVT, had first one, then two channels and enjoyed a captive audience with little competition.
SVT started a documentary department, modeled after the British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC's), and had full-time producers doing films. They provided viewers with a steady flow of documentary programming — domestic and the best from around the world — that drew millions of viewers. Demand was high. In 2008 SVT is one of the Nordisk Panorama sponsors.
Breaking with tradition
Saleh is one of the founders of Atmo Media Network, a leader in Swedish documentary film. Saleh and his colleague Erik Gandini have won international acclaim for Gitmo — The New Rules of War (2006), an unsettling film about prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Earlier titles from Atmo are Surplus — Terrorized into Being Consumers (2003) and Sacrificio — Who Betrayed Che Guevara? (2001).
Tarik Saleh and Erik Gandini is a documentary dream team. Photo: Henrik Montgomery / Scanpix
Saleh is part of a new breed of filmmaker, young talent that is weaving a new fabric for documentary and feature films. “Documentaries were once very dogmatic, with a ‘fly on the wall’ view as if they saw everything, but nobody knew they were there,” Saleh says. “It's interesting to note that Gitmo has not won any domestic awards, but has taken international prizes. For us to use music, narration and other elements was a radical approach to making Gitmo. In using these, we had to revolt against the conventional Swedish documentary tradition.”
Blending genres
In 2009 Saleh will be releasing Metropia, a computer-animated feature film about a dysfunctional, totalitarian European Union. A work of fiction, the film will surely reflect his documentary background. “The problem in Sweden is that there is a fixation on truth, a naturalist attitude. When I go to the cinema I want it to take me somewhere else, like Pirates of the Caribbean,” he says.
Saleh notes a new kid on the block in the genre, reality TV, which he refers to half jokingly as “the new documentary,” as you basically set up the camera and then document something. “The difference is subjectivity; the filmmaker takes a position and gives a temperament to the film,” he says. “And the difference between documentaries and features is not that big — either way you have to convince people it’s true.”
A springboard to the international market
At Nordisk Panorama, the makers of 74 different films are anxiously awaiting the announcement of the 2008 winners.
Jing Haase from Filmkontakt Nord, marketing coordinator for the festival, doesn’t give anything away. “This festival is a fine promotional opportunity that enables independent Nordic short and documentary films to reach international buyers and distributors,” he says. “There are a large number of films in competition and many more will be screened. I have my favorites, but... it’s a secret.”
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Charles Ferro
Charles Ferro is a Copenhagen-based freelance journalist and author. He documents events and creates fiction for young readers. After viewing a broad range of documentaries, he has become a true fan of the genre.
The author alone is responsible for the opinions expressed in this article.
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