Circuswereld Forum

Afgelopen week was de film voor het eerst te zien tijdens het Filmfestival van Gotenburg.
Een documentaire van bijna een uur over een meisje in het circus.
Geschreven, geproduceerd en geregisseerd door Asa Sjöström.
Met bovenstaande titel in het Engels, maar in goed Zweeds Den sista cirkusprinsessan.

De poster:



Over de film schrijft de maakster:

The Last Circus Princess tells a story about a 250 year old artform and a young girl, Simona.
She has been living and working in the circus her whole life.
Today, only two circuses remain in Sweden. Over the past ten years, the number of circuses in Sweden has decreased at the same speed as the years has past.
The perception that Circus is by nature animal plague has led to Circus death, in Sweden and most other countries in the world.
The Rhodin women is one of two circuses still using horses, dogs and sometimes other animals in their performance, and they fight for their rights to continue perform with their animals.
Everyday when they open their eyes, they meet new people who admire and despise them.
And the family is alway on the road to a new town somewhere in Sweden, like a changing backdrop.

Simona Rhodin where born into a life of alienation where she is expected to pass on the legacy of the small Circus Rhodin.
Adapting to the “ordinary” world has never been an option, traveling the roads with her two moms is what she’s familiar with and she will never turn away from it.
”This is my life, I don´t think the culture of circus will die, I was born into this and I can’t do anything else”

The Last Circus Princess is a documentary I´ve been working on since 2013 and started filming in 2015.
Ingeborg Rhodin, Simonas grandmother, becomes a symbol of a bygone era.
Through an amazing archive and Simonas mind we will be able to follow the heydays of Circus life to what Circus life has become today.
Will Simona be the last generation Circus artist?


Het gaat dus over Cirkus Rhodin. Naar eigen zeggen het mooiste circus van Zweden.
En de drie generaties die dit circus nog altijd kent.

Een trailer van de film: https://vimeo.com/385222862

De maakster schreef zelf half januari:

It is overwhelming to be nominated in two of the biggest documentary awards we have in Sweden and the Nordic country’s.
It’s my first documentary and there has been so much uncertainty and doubts within me.
I’m so happy and thankful to the wonderful Rhodin family who let me into their lives and everyone else who’ve been supportive and working on the film.

(Het tweede festival is Tempo, het grootste op het gebied van documentaires, begin maart in Stockholm)

Geen wonder dat de hond van het circus de krant leest......



en dit las hij dus:

De hoofdrolspelers waren eerder deze week te gast tijdens de première in Gotenburg, uiteraard samen met de filmmaakster:





Nog een paar foto's uit de film:

































De site van de film: http://www.asasjostrom.com/the-last-circus-princess/

De regisseuse over haar film: https://www.cineuropa.org/fr/interview/384582/

GÖTEBORG 2020

Åsa Sjöström • Directeur van The Last Circus Princess

"Circusfamilies zijn altijd verenigd"

Cineuropa spoke with photographer Åsa Sjöström about her first film, The Last Circus Princess, on the program of the Gothenburg Festival



In The Last Circus Princess [+], shown in the Göteborg Film Festival’s Nordic Documentary Competition, Åsa Sjöström gives the limelight to the women behind the Cirkus Rhodin, one of the last surviving circuses in Sweden, run by the seventh generation of performers who just won’t quit.

Cineuropa: What made you want to show something that has become rather unpopular? It’s fashionable to be against circus, rather than mourn its untimely demise.
Åsa Sjöström: I try not to focus too much on this idea of circus being all about animal abuse.
My characters talk about it, but I decided to show them instead, and the way they treat the animals.
The animals actually seem to be having a great time, as everyone who sees this film will surely attest.

When I was a child, my parents would take me to the circus.
I love horses and still do horseback riding, and at that time, I didn’t really think about whether the animals were treated well or badly.
My film is not a political opinion piece about where I stand, but it’s one of the reasons why the circus, as a culture, is dying.
There are good and bad people everywhere.
You never get a chance to listen to the ones behind it all, and here, it’s run by women ­– it’s a matriarchal world, which is pretty unusual.
When you are born into a certain culture that’s slowly disappearing, how do you survive?
There are only two circuses left in Sweden, so it was important to give them a voice.

Even though Simona, the titular heroine, is still very young, she seems to be living in the past, talking about her mother’s or her grandmother’s glory days as if they were her own.
A few decades ago, the circus used to be huge.
People would dress up, and entire cities would come to see it.
Now, they have to travel to small towns where there is nothing else to do.
Many of those that still want to continue, also those without animals, are struggling.
I would say that people in the countryside are still more familiar with it.
In Stockholm, kids probably don’t even know what a traditional circus is!
But with Cirkus Rhodin, last year they started their season in Malmö, and I think they will do it again.
Maybe it’s a new trend for parents like me, for example – we just want our kids to look up from their iPad or iPhone for once and see something in real life.

At one point, they say they are not allowed to put posters up, so they can’t let people know the circus is coming.
Why show the least exciting part of it all, all the paperwork and requests for permissions?
To them, it’s a normal job.
As a cultural worker, it’s something I can sympathise with and recognise, although in my case, at least I don’t have to deal with people who sometimes hate what I’m doing.
I was fascinated by how they were trying to survive.
These women were born into this, and they are fighters.
They don’t know anything else – they want to continue this legacy at all costs, even as it becomes impossible.
As long as there is an audience of some kind, they will keep on going.

So did you. You made a road movie!
I was driving in my own car, and sometimes I would sleep in it, too.
Then I rented a van, so I could get some proper sleep [laughs].
I usually work as a still photographer, and this is my first documentary, so of course I couldn’t stay with them all the time.
I still had to pay the bills.
Whenever I was gone, they would be calling me, saying: “You are missing so much!”
I learnt a lot while making this film.
I have always been interested in storytelling, and when you have time to work on a project, the result is more honest, I guess.
You start feeling other people’s emotions.
They really wanted me to show their life to the world, and how hard it is when you can’t even – yes – put up a poster saying you are in town.

Do you think this particular lifestyle, and not being bound to one household, for example, gave these women more freedom?
They are very independent, and they only trust themselves.
Diana, Simona’s mother, runs the circus, [her partner] Irene takes care of everything else that needs to be done, and Simona is the star.
These circus families, they always stick together.
I was fascinated by the impact of these women, also because I just like to show women, in everything I do.
And yes, I think they feel like they have freedom.

The way they see men is very practical – like when Simona says her mother keeps asking when she will find a boyfriend… to help out with the trucks.
We talked about it a lot.
Sometimes, when we were on the road, I felt like Simona was so young and sometimes felt so lonely.
She ended up meeting a guy, and at first, I didn’t want to show it.
I thought it would be too “cute”.
But we needed that, or otherwise she would seem so vulnerable.
It made her stronger, somehow.

Uit een eerste reactie blijkt het genoemde aantal van (nog maar) twee circussen in Zweden al niet te kloppen.

Zo is Brazil Jack nog altijd actief, en dat herdacht het afgelopen jaar al 120 jaar te bestaan.
Filmpje: https://www.facebook.com/CirkusBrazilJa ... 744843417/


Verder Cirkus Olympia, dat vorig jaar zijn 35-jarig bestaan vierde.




Zelf dacht ik ook nog aan Cirkus Bambino, waar ik vorig jaar nog iets over schreef.





En misschien zijn er wel kenners die er nog meer weten te noemen......

De erg mooie trailer van de film nu ook op Youtube met Engelse ondertiteling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqB0xvP1ZJw

Aangepaste poster (met vermelding 2e festival):



Nu maar wachten op de IDFA....