Karin Ekberg / Sweden / 2014 / 70min /

Synopsis:

They have been married for thirty-eight years. Over the past fifteen years they have been sleeping in separate bedrooms. Now, one of them wants a divorce. The villa is already on sale.

Is it ok to throw away the old wedding dress? What do you do with the crystal glasses that nobody wants?

In her debut documentary, Karin Ekberg follows her parents with a camera during a year of their lives. A year when nothing will be left the same.

We meet them for the first time in what was once their shared home. Things need to be divided. The rooms are desolate with furniture here and there. Her mother has already moved, and now the last things are left to sort out. "Do you want this or not? You've never liked it!" The father carries things out to the car, stopping to remember, in search of feelings that once existed.

The mother is impatient to get going. She doesn’t want to remember.

What happens between two people that get divorced--that perhaps should have been divorced long time ago? A Separation is a tragicomedy that portrays the very last acts of a long marriage. A film about the tentative search for a beginning in what--at last, and unfortunately--is over.

Director Bio:

Karin Ekberg was born in 1979 in Stockholm. She studied at the Dutch art academy AKI where she received a degree in photography in 2003. She also has a masters in journalism from JMK at Stockholm University. Karin has since worked in the media industry as a journalist, project manager, and communicator.

During a course in documentary filmmaking at Birkagården (2009/2010) Karin started working on her debut feature film A Separation. It was further developed during the workshop Twelve For the Future, and the graduate course Documentary Film Dramaturgy at the Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts. The film was selected for the official program at CPH:DOX 2013 and had its Swedish premiere during autumn 2013.

Presently Karin is attending the second year of a 2-year masters program at the Valand Academy Film in Gothenburg. She is also developing her next documentary, An Angel in the Family (working title).

Director's Statement:

It was a combination of the gaping holes in the walls left from hastily removed pictures, the ridiculous bickering about family heirlooms, and the extremely uncomfortable way Mum and Dad skirted around each other that sparked my impulse to start filming. I wanted to capture the practical and emotional events and also the passage towards an uncertain future. Later, the focus shifted to what actually makes us stay and what happens when we dare to let go.

Awards:

Best Nordic Documentary 2014, Nordic Docs (Norway).

HBO Invisible Camera Award 2014, Budapest International Film Festival