The 18th edition of Sweden’s largest nonfiction event, Tempo Documentary Festival, takes place this coming Monday, March 6 through Sunday, March 12. The fest brings more than 100 creative docs to Swedish audiences, largely curating an impressive selection of favorites from other international events, but also showcasing local work and other under-the-radar projects, including the work noted below.
Among the dozen feature offerings in the Swedish competition are: Ragnhild Ekner’s THE TRAFFIC LIGHTS TURN BLUE TOMORROW, a reflection on growing up inspired by the filmmaker’s friend’s suicide; Lisa Josephson and Sophia Josephson’s HEART NORTH, a portrait of growing up in rural noirthern Sweden; Theresa Traore Dahlberg’s OUAGA GIRLS (pictured), on young Burkina Faso women studying to become mechanics; Zahavi Sanjavi’s THE RETURN, following a Kurdish nurse in a refugee camp; Manal Masri’s LETTERS TO A SERIAL KILLER, the filmmaker’s investigation into her younger brother’s unexplained murder; and Karin Ekberg’s AFTER INEZ, which explores how we process grief.
Other Swedish productions or co-productions include Maj Wechselmann’s MY MOTHER, on the eventful life of the filmmaker’s mother, in the fest’s Top Docs section; Zaradasht Ahmed’s NOWHERE TO HIDE (pictured), a five-year chronicle of life in Iraq after the depature of the US, in Views from the World; Johanna St Michaels’ THE INERTIA VARIATIONS, which follows a singular creative comeback by THE THE frontman Matt Johnson, in Music & Arts; and Matiss Kaza’s ONE TICKET PLEASE, a portrait of a septugenarian New Yorker who watches a play a day.
what (not) to doc 