How did your film project begin, and under which circumstances?

During my whole childhood I found our neighbor to be very strange. A member of the Inner Mission and farmer who cultivated his fields right up to my parents house. Svend Frost was his name and I would often catch a glimpse of his hunched frame through the smoke from the burned field. When I reached my late twenties I began to wonder why I lacked sympathy for a person that I had never met. So I walked over “into the lions den” as he says in the movie. And I found out that he and my father hadn’t spoken in 15-20 years and couldn’t even agree on sharing a hedge. They had  each erected their own hedge with a 2 meter no-man’s-land between them. I had to find out why. And as I was looking for a good story at the time, I got the idea to make it into a film.

What was the biggest challenge making the film – artistically as well as technically?

At that point in time I was tired of the messy handheld camera and wanted a look like an american movie with dolly, proper lighting and grand images which all would help to elevate the everyday universe in which the story is told. Also because I really think that everyday activities like mowing the lawn, watering the flowers are things that hold great value for a lot of people. They are important fundamental values, where rituals, also for me, give comfort and a sense of control. It is these kind of values that are violated when the neighbor throws rocks onto your property and chases your children. One of the things I got to understand through the film was that when someone threatens these values and ones family, that is when you are must likely to see red.

As for the cast, it was very difficult to get the neighbor Svend Frost to participate as I was part of “the enemy on the other side of the hedge”. He was a west jutlander with a capital W, who didn’t feel the need to shake up the past and wasn’t interested in getting to know me. It helped a lot that I had brought Mira Jargil along, who he and his wife really liked. They saw her as a guarantee that everything would be told objectively, as Mira didn’t have any share in the conflict.

What was the most important thing you learned from the people you’re describing in your film?

That people have thought a lot more about life and the condition of things then I would ever have imagined. That everybody that has reached a certain age has constructed their on set of values and the basis of their experiences. Values that you can either agree or disagree on. But two main characters were men of honor, who both took great pride in their surroundings and their family. And I respect that a lot. I also got the urge to become a christian after the film, but mostly because it’s such a beautiful thought, that there should be a life after death, and that the thought that there is a deeper meaning and a God that watched over us is very comforting and warm.

What do want the audience to take away from your film?

That you should always remember to communicate when become irritated. To say it in a proper fashion and not let your emotion take control. A silent conflict quickly grows and quickly involves a lot of other feelings and suddenly it has snowballed into something enormous. Sadly it isn’t something that I’m very good at, but it has become better over the years! Another important lesson from the film is to accept that we all remember differently and have our own truths. You have to accept others as who they are and once in a while approach your enemy with a bouquet of flowers or a cold beer. Again something that I’m not very good at.

How do you look back at the result yourself?

I’m very happy about the look and the pace at which the story is told, which gives the story the opportunity to become a more universal story with a lot of weight in spite of the short length of 40 minutes. I can see a red thread in Side by Side from my graduation film and through to the films that I make today. Side by Side was my debut after film school and we were the exact same team that made my graduation film.

Which contemporary Nordic documentary film has made the biggest impression on you?

The Moods-trilogy by Stefan Jarl.

Which aspect of life in the North have the documentaries neglected in the recent years?

Something about the occult.

What’s your next documentary about and why have you chosen this subject?

My next film is about a spastic paralyzed man who is super intelligent. Han wants to compete with normal people and there is a 50/50 chance that he will succeed. At the same time the film will be a discussion of human evolution in the year 2013.

If you could change one thing about the conditions of making documentaries in the Nordic countries, what would it be?

That the money men were more interested in investing in development and research to find the good story and the good characters. There is too much focus on the production of the documentary, because in my opinion it is in the casting and the research that you secure the deep, entertaining and worthwhile story that you want to se again and again.

It takes time and money to tell a cinematic story, but it also takes time and money to find it.

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