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Erika Wasserman

Producers on the Move 2013 - Sweden

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- Erika Wasserman recently produced Axel Petersén’s debut, Avalon, which won the FIPRESCI prize in Toronto and was selected for Berlin’s Forum

With a Swedish doctor mother and an American journalist father, Swedish producer Erika Wasserman was a frequent traveller already when growing up – Sweden, the US, the West Indies, East Africa – and she still sees a lot of airports, having just returned from New York, where her latest (co)-production, US director Lance EdmandsBluebird, starring John Slattery (Mad Men (2007-2013)), opened the World Narrative Competition at the Tribeca Film Festival. In Stockholm, she worked with Swedish director Henrik Hellström on The Quiet Roar.

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Wasserman, who launched her own production company Idyll in 2009, produced Hellström and Fredrik Wenzel’s first feature, Burrowing, which was launched at the Berlinale in the same year. Most recently, she produced Swedish director Axel Petersén’s feature debut, Avalon (2011), which won the international critics’ FIPRESCI prize in Toronto, was selected for Berlin’s Forum and collected two Guldbaggar, Sweden’s national film prize.

“I like films that undress people psychologically, reflecting on human existence and making us laugh, probably from black humour,” Wasserman recently explained. While finishing The Quiet Roar, about an elderly woman on hallucinogens who meets herself as a young woman, she is developing Petersén’s next outing, Under the Pyramid – set in the international world of art business – which will shoot in Sweden, Israel and Egypt from later this year.

Cineuropa: Why did you decide to become a film producer and not a director?
Erika Wasserman: My first job was at a production company in New York, where I realised that the position of a director was so much anguish - all the pitches to be done, all the treatments to be submitted, all the rejections, all the disappointments. For acting, I remembered all the unsolicited headshots I filed in anonymous folders. As the producer, you could really make things happen, you could have a creative say in every aspect of the production. So much more fun - and half the anxiety. So it was easy choice.

Why did you decide to set up your own company?
I set it up when producing the follow up on Burrowing - The Quiet Roar. At the same time I was producing Avalon, so I thought it was good I had my own enterprise, Idyll.

You have made films both in Sweden and the US – is production very different in the two countries? Which do you prefer?
I enjoy the talent and the raw ambition in the US - there is no easy way to get a film done over there. On the other hand, this means it’s really hard even for talented teams and great scripts. The Swedish system allows for more creative freedom, a more egalitarian approach - you don't necessarily need to be connected to rich people, there is a more civilized system of art support and expression, as I see it.

What do you require from a script to convince you that you should take it?
I quite quickly can se if there is a quality and a mood in the script that suit me, and make me feel I can make it a good film.   

How well do you work with your directors? 
You early establish a common vision of the film. If it's shared, you work together towards that goal. 

You produced Avalon – how did you meet Petersén, why did it become so successful? Your next, will that be Avalon 2?
Petersén contacted me in Berlin after the Burrowing premiere, and after a couple of months of reading different script versions I attached myself to the project, and we started the financing. We shared the vision of the film and he shared the thoughts I had on the script and casting. The new film will build on our mutual experiences. It has a female lead and takes place in the international art world.  

You are also in post with Hellström’s new film, after Burrowing – what is The Quiet Roar? Anything the two directors have in common?
They share a positive outlook and we have a lot of fun working together.

Anything in production you are particularly good at – and anything certainly not?
I'm good at making things happen, finding solutions and not taking a no for an answer, not so good at enjoying the perils of a shoot. My love and respect for an efficient production manager is immense.

  

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