Friends forever
The filmed material in ”Friends forever” is a material that Lindberg has taken over from artist and filmmaker Henrik Lund Jørgensen, who was not able to go on with it himself. Lund Jørgensen had an idea to film postcards from different locations. In the films, he directs an actor friend to assume various, often uncomfortable, positions. The friend has to lie on a filthy and hard stairway “as one doesn’t want to lie there,” or walk up and down in the underground carrying luggage as trains thunder past. In Lindberg´s cut, she concentrated solely on the graphic sound- track. She neither listened to nor watched the film, but instead cut it according to the soundtrack’s peaks, watching the result only later. It seems to be rendering visible something that wasn’t supposed to be seen. When working on theatrical films, directors usually direct actors. It is a system of rules to which both parties adhere, and that the audience cannot see. In ”Friends forever”, however, the direction is the only thing left. For those who are accustomed to directing and making films, it is ordinary and easily recognizable, but without that background, it probably looks like something else: one person trying to control another. The title is a nod to Lund Jørgensen´ s earlier film Friends He Lost at Sea.
”Friends forever” started as a project within the collaborative project ”Carousell”, which is a group consisting of the artists Felice Hapetzeder (SE), Henrik Lund Jørgensen (SE/DK), Kristina Kvalvik (DK/NO) and Marit Lindberg (SE).
Carousell started when the four artists discovered that they were all archiving video footage that was important to them in some way, but which had never come to use.
The group decided to test what could happen if they handed over the material to each other within the group.
Through the process, they wanted to see if the method of taking over someone else’s material could provide a distance and thus a new view, but also create the challenge of seeing through another artist’s eye.
