Malla,Per,Alexander: Giants and the Morning After

Magnificent7 festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic write about the film:

“Giants and the Morning After” is a cinematic hit whose screenings are currently taking place throughout Sweden, while at the same time embarking on a trip to world festivals. The director’s trio, Malla Grapengiesser, Per Bifrost and Alexander Ryneus made funny and revealing walk through a Swedish small place in a country side. By combining myths, fairy tales and everyday realism, Swedish authors create a discrete comedy in a documentary of an unusual atmosphere.

Layers of past time interweave with everyday life. Beautiful, thick, dark forests enclose Idra. Neat spaces filled with houses, farms, small companies. Everyone here, both old and young, has one’s own business or entertainment, and together they create this little world in which everybody has an important place and a sense of belonging. In scenes of church gatherings, joint artistic endeavors, business ventures, children’s games or discreetly shot warm, intimate moments we witness the richness of life. Even when various newcomers are coming, planned or unplanned, they do not disturb the true peace of this small place immersed in a nature of the untouched beauty. Nevertheless, behind all this, in the darkness of the forest and in the shadows of giants that once shifted rocks, there is some dark anxiety that creates a threat to this rural idyll.

Malla Grapengiesser, Per Bifrost and Alexander Ryneus equally convincingly create a view of space and people, as well of intimate circles of friendship and love. They turn this seductive portrait of the seemingly sleepy Swedish countryside into a funny, lively and playful picture. Great, brilliant cinema!

http://www.giantsandthemorningafter.com/

Sweden, 2018, 88 mins.

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Tue Steen Müller
Tue Steen Müller

Müller, Tue Steen
Documentary Consultant and Critic, DENMARK

Worked with documentary films for more than 20 years at the Danish Film Board, as press officer, festival representative and film consultant/commissioner. Co-founder of Balticum Film and TV Festival, Filmkontakt Nord, Documentary of the EU and EDN (European Documentary Network).
Awards: 2004 the Danish Roos Prize for his contribution to the Danish and European documentary culture. 2006 an award for promoting Portuguese documentaries. 2014 he received the EDN Award “for an outstanding contribution to the development of the European documentary culture”. 2016 The Cross of the Knight of the Order for Merits to Lithuania. 2019 a Big Stamp at the 15th edition of ZagrebDox. 2021 receipt of the highest state decoration, Order of the Three Stars, Fourth Class, for the significant contribution to the development and promotion of Latvian documentary cinema outside Latvia. In 2022 he received an honorary award at DocsBarcelona’s 25th edition having served as organizer and programmer since the start of the festival.
From 1996 until 2005 he was the first director of EDN (European Documentary Network). From 2006 a freelance consultant and teacher in workshops like Ex Oriente, DocsBarcelona, Archidoc, Documentary Campus, Storydoc, Baltic Sea Forum, Black Sea DocStories, Caucadoc, CinéDOC Tbilisi, Docudays Kiev, Dealing With the Past Sarajevo FF as well as programme consultant for the festivals Magnificent7 in Belgrade, DOCSBarcelona, Verzio Budapest, Message2Man in St. Petersburg and DOKLeipzig. Teaches at the Zelig Documentary School in Bolzano Italy.

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