Love and murder - Swedish Film Institute

32
inBetWeener
shorT doc
erik BäFvinG
direcTor
editing life
director and editor erik bäfving likes to
work within a framework. The narrower,
the better. Just as he’s about to take
too much away, his narratives are at their
most powerful.
When Boogie Woogie Daddy (Boogie woogie
pappa) first appeared in 2002 it landed like a bomb
in the world of swedish short film. here was a
painfully honest attempt by erik bäfving to
understand his father, who committed suicide when
the director was a young teenager. the film, which
only uses still images left behind by his father, was
hailed by the critics and picked up a raft of awards.
“the idea of a follow-up did occur to me back
then. but it was only a few years later when i found
some self-portraits that i drew just after my dad had
died that everything came together. the new film
would be about me and how i coped with what
happened,” erik bäfving explains.
just as in the earlier film, only still images are
used in the follow-up Inbetweener (Dagar emellan,
2011). bäfving, who is an editor as well as a
director, uses the rhythm of editing and his own
narrator’s voice to compose a succinct journey
through grief and loneliness.
“With such a heavy subject it’s good to have the
short format as a framework. i’m interested in seeing
just how much i can pare down a narrative. When
you’re on the verge of taking too much away, that’s
often when it’s at its most powerful,” he says.
loVe sVensson
Facts 38-year-old bäfving attracted a lot of praise and
attention for his debut feature Get Busy (2004), a
documentary about the swedish hip hop band advance
patrol, co-directed with magnus gertten. his follow-up
was Ernst-Hugo (2008), a documentary about the
much-loved but highly controversial actor and
lars von trier-favourite, ernst-hugo järegård.
all phoTos anna wall