There was once a kingdom called Doggerland – a land of mammoths, hunters and forests that stretched between what is now Britain and the continent. 8,000 years ago, the Atlantis of the North Sea was sunk by melting ice caps, tsunamis and rising seas.
“Doggerland” is also the title of Kim Ekberg’s second feature film – an experimental, black-and-white hybrid drama set primarily in Norrköping. The loose plot revolves around Alf (John Holm), a diabolo artist by day who is approaching 40 but still lives in a townhouse neighborhood with his overprotective mother.
Mother Monica (Anita Holm) fears that her son is moving in the wrong circles and wants him to get a job and leave the nest. But when Alf goes on a juggling tour through Europe, her worries change – maybe it’s not that easy after all? In “Doggerland,” John and Anita Holm play fictional versions of themselves.
– Just like in the film, I think their way of living together on different wavelengths was an inspiring way to bridge the generation gap. Things could rub off without causing major conflict. “I wanted to highlight their nice and warm relationship outside of the film,” says Kim Ekberg, adding:
– There is something very interesting about the relationship between adult children and parents. “Maybe it’s a topic that belongs to the times,” he says, also referring to Kristofer Ahlström’s DN comment about the trend of house sons prevailing.
The Swedish director have busy days. When DN meets him at Bio Aspen in Hägersten, he is on the run between development discussions at his son’s school and a preview at Filmhuset. He tested his analog film countless times in the salon before its world premiere at the 76th Berlin Film Festival.
– You go a little crazy when you see the same movie twenty times. “Post-production is always fraught with anxiety, there is always a ghost in the machine,” says Kim Ekberg.
In recent years he has distinguished himself as both a guerrilla filmmaker and a film critic who defends the experimental, the analogue and the imperfect – and defends the right to fail. Better human errors and disappointments than lifeless, clinical perfection.
Two years ago He made his feature film debut (along with Sawandi Groskind) with the Don Quixote-inspired “XXL”. A deadly, wild and impressionistic hybrid film on the borderline between documentary, fiction and art film. The plot revolved around two siblings who travel to Helsinki for an audition and fight imaginary monsters.
– I see “Doggerland” as part of the same film universe as “XXL”. “Inspired by the experimental filmmaker Inger-Lise Hansen, I let a detail from one film become the basis for the entire next,” says Kim Ekberg, co-founder of the decidedly anti-capitalist production company Post Post.
John Holm, who plays the lead role in “Doggerland,” was a scenographer on one of Ekberg’s short films and, like his mother Anita, also had a small role in “XXL.”
“Since they invited each other to my next film, I realized early on that the film would somehow revolve around their relationship,” smiles Kim Ekberg, who once again had to juggle his knees to get a feature film together.
He burned the development aid for a short film of 100,000 crowns to film the two of them in their summer house – scenes that then formed the final act of the film. Ekberg describes it as a kind of workshop for working with two amateur actors playing a fictional version of themselves.
Unlike many of his colleagues, Kim Ekberg does not work with Excel spreadsheets, mood boards or meticulous scripts. Instead, he leaves room for coincidences, loose ideas and lets the films follow their own bizarre, often dreamlike logic. The filming of “Doggerland” cost around one million crowns – a small amount when the average budget for a Swedish feature film is at least twenty times that.
But Ekberg thinks so that it is still possible to create everyday magical worlds and convey hopeful political messages, that we are all “in the same boat.”
– The title “Doggerland” is reminiscent of an ancient underwater civilization – like a people’s home that appears beneath the surface. From the beginning, the title had no direct connection to the plot, but we added some additional scenes, for example where the mother sits and watches a British documentary about the real Doggerland, says Kim Ekberg.
Visually, “Doggerland” is inspired, among other things, by the Japanese master Yasujiro Ozu and black-and-white Swedish documentaries from the 70s and 80s by filmmakers such as Jan Lindqvist, Nina Hedenius and Lena Ewert.
“I wanted to mix Ozu with something more raunchy and make a folk form of experimental film,” says Kim Ekberg, who likes both Tarkovsky and Dunderklumpen.
Four years ago He complained that there was a gap between the international art film and “our Swedish alternative,” as he wrote in FLM magazine. Things haven’t gotten much better since then, he says.
– The film policy mission now seems to be to save the cinemas and create mass culture through fewer and more expensive films. Bad, of course! “I also don’t see any point in having a film policy that tries to compete with Netflix,” says Kim Ekberg.
In his opinion, most Swedish feature films often feel discolored by the prevailing film politics.
– After all the thrashing around the system, it feels like all the edges have been sanded down when the films hit the audience. Many young filmmakers who want to make films quickly and cheaply lose all inspiration when they finally get the green light. The potential is so much greater than what is actually produced, he says.
Before the new film After even having its world premiere, he has already started working on the next film, which is of course a spin-off of “Doggerland”. In the new film he uses the Valdemarsvik profile “Rogga”, who plays a micro role in “Doggerland”.
– Rogga lives in the country and has built and decorated an entire Jamaica bar in his barn. “It seemed like enough to move on to the next film,” says Kim Ekberg, who received development support for the first time from a feature film consultant, Andrea Östlund.
But first, the big question: Will Alf move away from home in “Doggerland”?
– Well, maybe he stays, or he lives at home half the year and goes out and drives Diablo the rest of the year. Maybe that’s all they’ll achieve – and that has to be okay, smiles Kim Ekberg.
“Doggerland” will be shown at the Berlin Film Festival on February 14th, 16th, 18th and 21st.
Facts.Kim Ekberg
directorScreenwriter, editor, film critic. Born in 1989 in Krokek near Kolmården, now lives in Bredäng south of Stockholm.
Trained at HDK-Valand in Gothenburg.
Directorial debut with the closing film “The Wind Blows Where It Wills” (2017), which premiered at the São Paulo Film Festival. Has directed several music videos and short films. The short film “2gether” won the Dragon Award at the Gothenburg Film Festival 2022.
The feature film “XXL” (2024), co-directed with Sawandi Groskind, had its international premiere at FIDMarseille. Since 2022, she has been running the independent, anti-capitalist production company POST POST together with Sawandi Groskind, Saarlotta Virri and Hannah Wiker Wikström.
Current with “Doggerland”, which celebrates its world premiere on February 14th at the Berlin Film Festival.
Stardom and strong female roles at this year’s Berlin Festival
The dripping and warm “XXL” takes an absurd indie trip to Helsinki
