– I learned something about commitment and dependence. How we are so fundamentally dependent on the proximity and care of others in order to become subjects, Brandrud says about making «1987-1993».

How did your film project begin, and under which circumstances?
I guess it started when I was around 10 years old reading each end every snowboard magazine I could find. Or actually I wasn’t really reading them. It was all about the images. The images of my heroes doing tricks high up in the air. I wanted so bad to be in these pictures. For the next seven years me and my mother tried our best to make it happen.
What was the biggest challenge making the film – artistically as well as technically?
As the images were already there when I decided to make the film, the challenge was the recording of my mothers voiceover. In a way this reflected how I once directed her to photograph me. Now I wanted her to talk about it in a certain way.
Why did you choose this specific visual and narrative approach for your film?
I wanted to stay somewhat close to the way family photographs are presented within a everyday setting. How we use our these pictures to tell the story of our lives. How we costruct the images of ourselves through them. So I tried to view the film as a kind of slideshow with comments, allthough hopefully taken to a slightly more elaborated level.
What was the most important thing you learned from the people you’re describing in your film?
I think I learned something about commitment and dependence. How we are so fundamentally dependent on the proximity and care of others in order to become subjects.
What do you want the audience to take away from your film?
Something around what I just said about dependency I guess. But I’m also intrested in using the very image-making, the photographic activity in this case, as a way to study how we relate to each other and how subjectification can take form. If the audience approaches any of these thoughts I’m more than happy, but I also love when people see entirely other things in my films that I never have had any prior thoughts of myself.
How do you look back at the result yourself?
It’s like looking back at someone looking back at me.
Which contemporary Nordic documentary film has made the biggest impression on you?
I’m not sure how to define «documentary», but I’ve been interested the work of Erik M Nilsson, Pirjo Honkasalo and Gunvor Nelson.
Which aspect of life in the North have the documentaries neglected in the recent years?
I don’t have a sufficient overview or knowledge to comment on that.
What’s your next documentary about and why have you chosen this subject?
It is a kind of continuation of «1987-1993″ in feature lenght format. However, this time the camera is directed towards my mother, as she is taking care of her dying father. It’s main subject is care. I think it’s an important topic to bring up in our individualized capitalistic patriarchal society. But I also want to try examine the attempt of understanding another human by creating an image of her. Through the filming process itself, I try to look at how we approach eachother by means of the images and stories we make of ourselves. I’ve been working on the film, titled «After You», for over five years now and it looks like it’s going to be finished early 2013.
If you could change one thing about the conditions of making documentaries in the Nordic countries, what would it be?
In a world of dreams I’m seeing practice-oriented support, instead of focusing on each project like a separate entity. A structure with space for mistakes and unexpected digressions, encouraging bolder ways of filmmaking. At the same time I’m seeing responsible and devoted filmmakers sincerely scrutinizing their own modes of production, organizing in challenging constellations and opening up for new and critical strategies.
How did your film project begin, and under which circumstances?
I guess it started when I was around 10 years old reading each end every snowboard magazine I could find. Or actually I wasn’t really reading them. It was all about the images. The images of my heroes doing tricks high up in the air. I wanted so bad to be in these pictures. For the next seven years me and my mother tried our best to make it happen.
What was the biggest challenge making the film – artistically as well as technically?
As the images were already there when I decided to make the film, the challenge was the recording of my mothers voiceover. In a way this reflected how I once directed her to photograph me. Now I wanted her to talk about it in a certain way.
Why did you choose this specific visual and narrative approach for your film?
I wanted to stay somewhat close to the way family photographs are presented within a everyday setting. How we use our these pictures to tell the story of our lives. How we costruct the images of ourselves through them. So I tried to view the film as a kind of slideshow with comments, allthough hopefully taken to a slightly more elaborated level.
What was the most important thing you learned from the people you’re describing in your film?
I think I learned something about commitment and dependence. How we are so fundamentally dependent on the proximity and care of others in order to become subjects.
What do you want the audience to take away from your film?
Something around what I just said about dependency I guess. But I’m also intrested in using the very image-making, the photographic activity in this case, as a way to study how we relate to each other and how subjectification can take form. If the audience approaches any of these thoughts I’m more than happy, but I also love when people see entirely other things in my films that I never have had any prior thoughts of myself.
How do you look back at the result yourself?
It’s like looking back at someone looking back at me.
Which contemporary Nordic documentary film has made the biggest impression on you?
I’m not sure how to define «documentary», but I’ve been interested the work of Erik M Nilsson, Pirjo Honkasalo and Gunvor Nelson.
Which aspect of life in the North have the documentaries neglected in the recent years?
I don’t have a sufficient overview or knowledge to comment on that.
What’s your next documentary about and why have you chosen this subject?
It is a kind of continuation of «1987-1993″ in feature lenght format. However, this time the camera is directed towards my mother, as she is taking care of her dying father. It’s main subject is care. I think it’s an important topic to bring up in our individualized capitalistic patriarchal society. But I also want to try examine the attempt of understanding another human by creating an image of her. Through the filming process itself, I try to look at how we approach eachother by means of the images and stories we make of ourselves. I’ve been working on the film, titled «After You», for over five years now and it looks like it’s going to be finished early 2013.
If you could change one thing about the conditions of making documentaries in the Nordic countries, what would it be?
In a world of dreams I’m seeing practice-oriented support, instead of focusing on each project like a separate entity. A structure with space for mistakes and unexpected digressions, encouraging bolder ways of filmmaking. At the same time I’m seeing responsible and devoted filmmakers sincerely scrutinizing their own modes of production, organizing in challenging constellations and opening up for new and critical strategies.
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