Ten short films from Nordic “Directors to watch” follows the December issues of the Nordic film magazines RUSHPRINT in Norway, EKKO in Denmark, Episodi in Finland and FLM in Sweden. One of the directors is Gustav Danielsson with «Animals I Killed Last Summer«.

– How did you get the idea for the film?

“My two sons are just getting old enough to start enjoying fishing and it’s very important for them that I kill the fish they catch. If I throw the fish back in the water they start crying ‘Kill the fish dad! I want it!’ I have big trouble killing those fish. But when I started thinking about my own moral code in this matter, I realized the complexity of it – I can’t kill the small fish my sons catch, but I have no problems eating fish or meat from an animal that someone else has slaughtered. So I’m not good or humane. It’s mainly that I just don’t want to get blood on my own hands. That reasoning evolved into this film where a young boy kills small animals and his father tries to figure out how to raise his son to not become a psychopath and at the same time he’s struggling with his own moral.”

– What was the biggest challenge of making the film?

”The biggest technical challenge was by far to arrange the animal killing scenes without killing or harming any of the animals. And since the film basically consists of scenes of animals getting killed, half the film ended up being trick shots. What we basically did was to replace the living animal with an already dead animal in the moment of death. Special effects director and production designer Agustìn Moreaux did a fantastic job in front of the camera. The work he and his crew did was so amazing we actually thought about making a little book about it. Visual effects director Fredrik Borg did a great job in postproduction. Why did we go through all this? Well, the answer is just as vaguely morally correct as the father’s actions in the film. Most of the cast and crew ate meat during the production. So the answer is – gut feeling. For me it doesn’t feel right to sacrifice an animal for the sake of a film.”

– Which feelings do you hope the audience is left with after watching the film?

“Ambivalence. Although I know some in the audience feel hate. Hate against me, the filmmaker. Because they think we sacrificed these animals to make the film. But we didn’t.  I’ve had a lot of conversations about the subject of killing animals, raising kids, moral codes, integrity and strength to follow your believes and my own failures to do so sometimes. I don’t want to tell people what’s good or bad, I want to start a discussion.”

– What do you hope this film can do for your career?

“I want to continue making films, short ones and long ones. I’m exploring different themes and turn them into movies.  I’ll continue to do so as long as I find interesting dilemmas and themes to explore. And hopefully the audience appreciates the stories. I’m very grateful that Animals I Killed Last Summer has had a good deal of success at festivals all over the world. That might help me to get funds that can contribute to my next project. .”

– Why does the film look the way it does – aesthetically and stylistically?

“I am a cinematographer, that’s what I do most of the time. My first big film as cinematographer was Roy Andersson’s You, the Living. My esthetics originates from Roy and so does my method of carefully doing drawings of the images before going onto set. But my esthetics is under constant change. I still like long takes and wide images, picturing both the people and their environment. But I’ve moved in closer with the camera, I edit more freely. Animals I Killed Last Summer starts really stylistically precise. Every scene starts with a close-up of the animal about to die, followed by a wide shot of the people around it. Towards the end gradually the camera breaks loose from the static images and moves more freely. That was an intuitive choice.”

– How do you feel about the result today? – What is good and what is bad?

“I’m very happy with the result. It was an enormous team effort to pull this through and I’m very satisfied with everyone I worked with. And I’m very happy with how the father, Sebastian Ylvenius, and the young boy, Anton Samuelsson Forsdik, performed. I think they’re brilliant. There are of course some things that could have been better. One thing is that I might have been even closer up on the animals about to die.”

– What was the most important thing you learned during the making of your film?

“This was the first time I directed kids and I learned that you need a natural acting talent. It’s really not my credit that Anton Samuelsson Forsdik plays his character as good as he does. He’s a prodigy. Everything he does in front of the camera he does with total naturalism and presence. He’s going to be a star.”

– Which Nordic directors inspire you?

“Lars von Trier, Lukas Moodyson, Roy Andersson”

– How would you describe the conditions for making feature films in Nordic countries?

“I’m mostly experienced in making short films and we have good conditions here. I know there are more funding and more focus on short films in the Nordic countries compared to a most other places in the world.”

– If you could change one thing about Nordic films, what would it be?

“I wish we had more funding to make full length features. And I wish we could renew the Swedish Filmavtalet to something less focused on commercial success and more focused on quality. Not saying that commercial success necessarily means that the film has no quality, but the commercially successful films are not in the same need of funding from the film institutes.”

– Which actors/film professionals from other Nordic countries would you like to work with?

“I would like to work with actor Anders Danielsson Lie. I saw him in Oslo, 31 August  and his performance was just mind-blowing. During film history, the film media develops; it takes a little jump forward, leaving everything made before that point feeling a little old. For me watching Anders acting in Oslo, 31 August was one of these moments. It was something I’ve never seen before.”

– What is your next film going to be about?

“It’s going to be about a moral dilemma. It’s going to be dark and funny. I have a few scripts and ideas that I work on and as soon anything is good enough, hopefully I can realize it to a film.”

av Jeppe Mørch & Marie Andersen / Filmmagasinet Ekko