EXCLUSIVE: Sales outfit Coproduction Office has locked a series of international distribution deals on Redoubt, the up-to-date feature from Swedish filmmaker John Skoog, which debuts tomorrow at San Sebastian and stars veteran actor Denis Lavant.
The film has been sold to Alamode (Germany & Austria), Aerofilms (Eastern Europe excl. Poland), Feelgood (Greece), Road Pictures (China), Green Narae (South Korea), Andrews Film (Taiwan), September Films with Anticipate (Singapore), and Falcon (MENA).
Additional deals include TriArt (Sweden), Ost For Paradis (Denmark), Sovereign (United Kingdom), Bord Cadre (Switzerland), and Madants (Poland).
The film follows farm worker Karl-Göran Persson, who, at the start of the Cold War, begins to fortify his home. He gathers scrap metal and casts it into the walls to build a fortress meant to protect himself and his neighbours. His efforts are met with puzzlement by everyone but the children. As the construction progresses, so does a conflict with the people in the village.
Lavant plays Persson, who was a real-life farmer in Sweden during the Cold War. His unique story has been a point of intrigue in Sweden for many years. Director Skoog grew up close to the site of Persson’s real fortress.
“My parents and I used to go to his fortress as a small Sunday excursion; it’s about one hour from where I grew up,” Skoog told us in an interview ahead of his San Sebastian screening.
Redoubt is Skoog’s second feature. He graduated from the Art Academy in Frankfurt. Among others, he has directed the short films Sent på jorden / Late on Earth (2011), Värn / Reduit (2014), and Shadowland (2015), which competed at the Berlin Festival. His debut feature film, Säsong / Ridge (2019), won the CPH: DOX Award at the Copenhagen Documentary Film Festival.
Alongside Lavant, the film stars Agnieszka Podsiadlik, Livia Millhagen, and Aron Skoog. Skoog directs from a screenplay he co-wrote with Kettil Kasang. The film was produced by Plattform Produktion in co-production with Film i Väst, Film i Skåne, SVT, BCD Film, BUFO, Lemming Film, Paloma Productions, and Madants. TriArt Film is handling Swedish distribution.
After San Sebastian, Redoubt will screen at the London Film Festival. Scroll down below to read our interview with Skoog, which covers the film’s source material, how he landed Lavant, and shooting in black and white.
DEADLINE: When were you first aware of Karl-Göran Persson’s story?
SKOOG: It is a story that has followed me through most of my life. My parents and I used to go to his fortress as a small Sunday excursion, it’s about one hour from where I grew up. The combination of climbing around this strange building and having heard the almost legendary stories about Karl-Göran was evocative and haunting.
DEADLINE: Can you tell us a little about the research you conducted to construct the film?
SKOOG: The script grew out of hours conversations I had with people who had meet Karl-Göran in one form or another, then I also found that Bengt Rosenhall, a local journalist, had done the same in 1975, just after Karl-Göran passed. There was a noticeable difference between the stories I had gathered, where most people I spoke with had childhood memories of Karl-Göran while the ones from 1975 were with people he worked for or with, the local police officer, the priest, the neighbors, as you can imagine the two views were very different one quite harsh or at least uncomprehending to him and his life project and the other almost like a mythical character. However, some things were agreed on: his strength, his kindness to children, his strong singing voice, his conviction.
The other big field of research was the reconstruction of Karl-Görans building. The production designer Søren Schwarzberg, the set designer Ernst Skoog (my brother) and I put together an interdisciplinary group of local craftsmen and creator and together we worked with our hands to try to understand what Karl-Görans building. Our collaboration took shape as a site-specific process, where the structure grew organically in dialogue with both the landscape and the local community.
DEADLINE: Why black and white?
SKOOG: We shot on black and white 35mm film because it aligned with the themes of the film and that it enhanced the physicality and the textures of the film, of Denis Lavant and the manual labor of constructing the building. It also helped us to place the film in a general past.
DEADLINE: When did you first think about Denis Lavant?
SKOOG: Erik Hemmendorff, the producer, Ita Zbroniec-Zajt and I had been talking about doing something with these stories from Karl-Görans life for many years, especially when the political climate of today started echoing that of Karl-Görans times in the most horrible ways. But there was the problem of no actor being able to take on the role of Karl-Göran and doing him justice after his character had grown to mythical proportions for us. It was the thought of Denis incarnating Karl-Göran that made the film possible to imagine.
DEADLINE: Was it easy to get him on board? He’s known to be quite selective.
SKOOG: I got hold of his email and wrote him a long letter telling him about Karl-Göran and his building. He answered: “Dear John, thank you for your email, can you please write me in French”. My friend translated the letter and then an answer came quickly: “I would like to be part of this adventure”. Then we started writing. So, Denis has been part of the process from the very beginning. It was imagined for and together with him.
San Sebastian runs from September 19 to 27.
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