Rooftop Films: Greetings From The Woods July 24, 2010

VENUE
THE OLD AMERICAN CAN FACTORY
On the roof of The Old American Can Factory
GOWANUS/ PARK SLOPE
232 THIRD ST. AT 3RD AVE., BROOKLYN, NY 11215
F/G to Carroll St. or M/R to Union Ave.
8:00 Doors Open
8:30 Live music
9:00 Film begins
11:00 Reception in courtyard

NY Premiere! With a mixture of playful precision, humour and melancholy Mikel Cee Karlsson captures the dreams, relationships and everyday life of the denizens of his hometown, a tiny little village deep with the Swedish forest.

Presented in partnership with: IFC, New York magazine, Swedish Film Institute & XO Projects
THE FILMS

GREETINGS FROM THE WOODS (Mikel Cee Karlsson | Sweden | 75 min.)
Impeccably composed and entrancing from start to finish, Mikel Cee Karlsson's Greetings from the Woods is a masterful documentary about the town of Varberg, a beautiful little hamlet located deep within the Swedish forest. A former professional skateboarder and now a successful music video director, the filmmaker returned to Varberg to spend three years capturing the lovely charm and the magical and mundane habits of the longtime denizens of his boyhood home. His impressionistic portrait is filled with lovingly captured little moments: an eccentric local dressed as a Viking shops at a local strip mall; a tiny dog faces off against a herd of curious cattle; a seemingly endless parade of mopeds shoot down the road; a local photographer wanders through fairgrounds and local parks, capturing thousands of snapshots of the locals. Even the routine household rituals of Karlsson's parents--his father playing with the cat and salting slugs in the yard, his mother vacuuming the house and falling asleep in the living room--are assembled to create a delicate, intimate, yet exhilaratingly engaging ballet of motion and stillness.

Since departing hometown years ago, Karlsson has achieved a great deal of success shooting and directing videos for many of Scandinavia's biggest stars - most notably Fever Ray. His videos show a keen eye and inventive imagination, and have won countless awards across Europe. Nonetheless, Greetings From the Woods shows a breadth of vision and a dedication to the art of verite documentary filmmaking that signals a great leap forward for Karlsson.

One unforgettable montage starts in the waiting area of a maternity ward, with an expectant mother sitting, listening patiently--but with an unmistakable look of concern--as she listens to the almost comically pained wailing of another mother giving birth down the hall. We enter the delivery room to see the moment of birth, and the tormented cries of the mother suddenly give way to the quiet--but unmistakably messy--beauty of the mother holding her newborn in her arms for the first time; the infant is still fresh, wet and purple from the womb. A moment later the child is washed and dried by a nurse, and his screams mirror the panic his mother felt just moments earlier. Next we see the swaddled baby in his mother's arms, sleeping peacefully, as his grandfather looks over them with a smile on his face that is at once childlike, gleeful, and serene. This sequence segues into old archival super 8 footage of the town from long ago: runners race off into the hills at a local marathon, a farmer doffs his cap, an elk stares into the camera, a sunflower towers over us, two stories in the air. The sequence ends as we discover that the footage was shot by the local photographer, and we seem him sitting in his dark living room watching these childhood home movies on an old projector. Stretched across his face is a smile that is at once childlike, gleeful, and serene.

Sequences such as these make Greetings much more than a series of beautiful images or a sentimental homage to a town. Karlsson's film captures the distinctly Swedish character of the people of Varberg, while simultaneously communicating subtly transcendent truths about love, life, humanity, nature, and, most of all, the passage of time. Karlsson's inspired eye behind the camera and subtly clever touch as an editor are given a perfect showcase in this extraordinary film, and Greetings From the Woods signals the emergence of a unique new talent in world cinema.

Official Website: http://www.rooftopfilms.com/2010/schedule/29-greetings-from-the-woods