20/03/2025 - The producer describes her work and how creativity fits into it, and lists the varied projects she is preparing

Ashley J Smith is a producer and managing director of Sisyfos Film in Stockholm together with Mario Adamson. Recently Motherland [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] won the main prize at CPH:DOX and received an EFA nomination for Best Documentary. Prior to producing, she worked at film festivals, taught Cinema Studies, and published a PhD dissertation on the archival life of home movies. She is currently developing documentary, fiction, and immersive projects and co-directing the feature documentary Punk Rock Aerobics: The Movie.

Why do you produce documentaries? Do you see documentary cinema as an instrument of social and political change?
Ashley J Smith: I produce documentaries because I love creative nonfiction as an art form. From the production side, it is an exciting form to work in because we have to adapt to whatever life comes at us with. We never completely know what we’re getting into when we start a documentary project (or for how many years!). It’s a challenging way of working, but I also believe this challenge – trying to harness real life into the form of a story using audiovisual means – is one of the greatest allies to creativity.

As someone who also loves watching documentaries, I can only hope audiences experience something – emotionally, intellectually, and even bodily – when they watch a Sisyfos film. Through our films, we want to reach audiences who never really considered watching docs so they get tuned in to the wide variety of forms of expression within the documentary “genre” (if it can even be called a genre).

As to whether I see documentary cinema as an instrument of social and political change: in some cases yes. But this is not singular to documentary, nor is it exclusive to cinema. All art carries this possibility, though it is not the purpose of all art to be an instrument of social and political change either.

How do you achieve and maintain work-life balance and foster overall well-being?
Work-life balance? Has anyone figured this out yet? I’m not trying to be flippant. This is truly the most important thing to me and to Sisyfos Film as a company. The things we’re currently trying involve drawing stricter boundaries and learning to say “no” earlier – without losing our sense of curiosity and excitement for the people and projects we get to work with in this profession. Also: protecting time for meditation, movement, and uninterrupted focused work.

Where do you find audiences for yourfilms?
We’re putting a lot of work into growing audiences through outreach programs so interested communities can start gathering around a project before the film is even finished. This is a way to introduce more people to documentary storytelling and to find ways for our films to meet audiences in whatever spaces it makes sense. I love cinemas and, of course, want our films to be shown in theaters with big screens and optimal sound, but in order to fight for collective viewing experiences, we have to expand on the types of venues for our films.

At Sisyfos Film, we’ve also just started our own Swedish distribution company and will inaugurate this by self-distributing a package of short films that we’ve either produced or co-produced. It’s exciting to get more hands-on with the process of making our films seen in Sweden. The films we make tend to be very international by nature, but each of them also taps into topics and themes that are deeply relevant to life in today’s Sweden and the issues that are most important to people.

What projects do you have underway?
We’re currently editing a project called Elevated directed by Gustav Littorin that we aim to finish by the end of the year. We’ve been working with Gustav since 2020 as he’s developed this moving and playful story about a group of outsiders on the autism spectrum who find community in the most unlikely of places…elevators. Even though it takes on some tough topics, it’s ultimately a feel-good film that we plan to have a big outreach campaign around. Basically, everyone who watches this film is going to fall in love with elevators!

We have two more docs that will be completed this year. One is Costa Rican filmmaker André Robert’s poetic feature debut, Violent Skin. In it, he tries to reconcile his queerness with the traditional masculinity among the men in his family by accompanying his uncle on a jaguar hunt. The other is Lust for Life by seasoned director Viktor Nordenskiöld. The film is a touching story about two refugees from Syria who arrive in Hamburg and develop a deep friendship with a young German man with cerebral palsy.

We also have great momentum on our documentary hybrid, Bachman: The Story of Stephen King’s Pseudonym, director Max Eriksson’s second feature after The Scars of Ali Boulala. This film is an exploration of authorship that examines one of the most popular writers of our time in a quirky and unconventional way, through his once-secret pseudonym.

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EMERGING PRODUCERS is a leading promotional and educational project, which brings together talented European documentary film producers. The programme is organised and curated by the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival.

Deadline for applications to the EMERGING PRODUCERS 2026 edition is 31 March 2025.