Stefan
Jarl

He was born on 18 March 1941 in Skara, southern Sweden, where he spent his childhood. There he met Arne Sucksdorff and began working with him. In the early 1960s he enrolled in the newly opened Stockholm Film School. During the 1970s he participated in the formation of a union for film workers and a non-commercial distribution company. His films have received numerous major awards, including the European Academy Award presented in '93 for Det sociala arvet: Misfits to Yuppies, the third part of a trilogy that began in '68 with Dom kallar oss mods and continued with Ett anständigt liv, which became one of the biggest box office hits in Sweden.

«A pupil and assistant of Arne Sucksdorff, one of the acknowledged masters of documentary filmmaking, Stefan Jarl began his work in Sweden in the 1960s, characterising himself as an author who primarily wanted to work independently, outside the models and constraints of the film and television industry. To this end Jarl deals with all aspects of filmmaking, participating in the establishment of production and distribution companies and also contributing, through a magazine, to the critical debate. His interest and achievements in the area of what is termed “documentary” reveal a willingness to exercise maximum freedom with regard to codified film genres and languages. Jarl rejects the myth of cinéma-vérité and constructs films in which reality is captured in its contradictory sides, in its complex truths, demonstrating, even in his forays into feature-length subject films, how arbitrary the boundary between documentary and fiction is.

The selection proposed within CinemAmbiente [Cinemambiente 1998] includes those works most directly addressing one of Jarl's favourite themes: the relationship between nature and civilisation, represented in several cases through the comparison between the world of childhood and that of adults. With rigour and passion, drawing on the lesson of painters such as Bruegel, Rembrandt and Van Gogh, Jarl describes the catastrophic consequences of human intervention on nature, communities and subjects whose identity is irreparably compromised by modernisation, which appears as a tragic and inevitable process. But these are not nostalgic statements. Jarl confronts the viewer with contemporary themes and dramas, always trying to grasp even opposing sides of the same subject matter. This approach is confirmed by the whole of his production, in which the passionate depiction of nature and attention to the world of childhood are complemented by his more social interests in films in which he portrays outcasts and rebels living in urban spaces.

As part of the homage to Stefan Jarl, Arne Sucksdorff's first feature film and major work, Det stora äventyret (1953) will also be screened, a poem about the Swedish forest rhythmically following the passing of the seasons that interweaves the life of nature and animals with the tale of two boys who rescue a young otter and decide to breed it in secret from everyone». (Aurora Fornuto)

Filmography: S-Tänk (1966), Snutarna (1966), Dom kallar oss mods (1968), Bekämpa byråkratin (1969), Gisslan berättar (1973), Förvandla Sverige (1966-74), Bojkott (1975), Vihar vår egen sång – Musikfilmen (1976), Ett anständigt liv (1979), Memento Mori (1981), Naturens hämnd (1983), En av oss (1984), Själen är större än världen (1985), Hotet/Uhkkádus (1987), Tiden har inget namn (1989), Goda människor (1990), Jåvna – renskötare ar 2000 (1991), Det sociala arvet: Misfits to Yuppies (1993), Samernas land/Same Ätnam (1995), Jag är din krigare (1997)