Movies and shakers
the power of two
Two first-time directors, one Danish, one Swedish,have been causing a stir on the film festival circuit. Have Jens Jonsson and Omar Shargawi started a new wave in Scandinavian cinema? Sterling investigates
interview by Pierre De Villiers
At this year’s Rotterdam Film Festival two outstanding Scandinavian movies went head-to-head for a coveted Tiger award. Representing Denmark was Go With Peace Jamil, Omar Shargawi’s hard-hitting refugee drama. Doing Sweden proud was The King of Ping Pong, a dark coming-of-age tale directed by Jens Jonsson. After much deliberation by the jury it was Shargawi who emerged the victor. But Jonsson couldn’t have been too disappointed as his film had just landed the Grand Jury and cinematography prizes for world dramatic cinema at the Sundance festival in America.
While the recognition enjoyed by these films has boosted the careers of the two first-time feature directors, it is the effect that The King of Ping Pong and Go With Peace Jamil are having on other up-and-coming filmmakers in Sweden and Denmark that is likely to prove far more signficant.
Jonsson and Shargawi are both too modest to call themselves trailblazers but there are definite signs that the success of their films is inspiring a new wave of Scandinavian directors who can now see the potential for their own work to reach a global audience.
“I think once a film has had success there is a change of attitude among other filmmakers,” says Jonsson. “It’s a mental thing where directors suddenly realise that a Swedish film can be shown at big festivals even if it is not by Bergman or Roy Andersson. It is a mental barrier that needs to be removed and I think the way to do that is for someone to aim a little bit higher and not just complain about small budgets in Sweden.
“I think sometimes one film or filmmaker can change quite a lot in the industry. You have to go out there and make the film you want to and trust it will strike a chord.”
But Jonsson is also quick to recognise that securing financial backing for a Swedish film is not always easy. “I was very lucky that I got very strong support from financiers which I think is not always the case,” he says. “I had a relatively free hand to do whatever I wanted to do. I think I was lucky because I had a series of short films behind me that had been well received. People who were involved with The King of Ping Pong had already seen stuff I had directed so they knew what to expect when it came to my first feature.”
Jonsson, who hails from Umeå, has more than justified the faith placed in him. The King of Ping Pong – which is set in the frozen north of Sweden and focuses on an overweight teenager who finds joy in playing table tennis – has found many admirers outside Scandinavia. Ask Jonsson the secret of his success and he stresses that filmmaking should be a collaborative process.
“I have filmmakers who I talk to a lot and meet up with and look at editing and cooperate,” says the writer-director. “And I also think there should be a direct link between the producer and director. That way the project is linked to a very specific creative mind. I think directors need to be sending their scripts to each other and bringing some openness to the creative process.”
And Jonsson has begun to detect signs that the international acclaim which he won with his first feature is helping to foster just such a spirit of openness and collaboration among a number of his fellow young filmmakers in Sweden.
“In Stockholm it is starting to change now,” he says. “There is a new generation coming through where you have less competition and more of a sense of working together. The same thing is happening in Gothenburg where Ruben Östlund is doing exceptionally well. I get a strong sense that filmmakers in Gothenburg are working well together too and we are going to see a lot of interesting things coming from there. It’s a case of not stabbing each other in the back but rather pushing each other in a positive direction.”
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