Marcus Carlsson and ‘The Ugly Stepsister’ Star Adam Lundgren Talk Göteborg Opener ‘The Quiet Beekeeper’ and Regaining Swedish Audiences

Opening the Göteborg Film Festival on Jan. 23 with “The Quiet Beekeeper” is not only an honor for “Love & Will” director Marcus Carlsson and “The Ugly Stepsister” actor Adam Lundgren – it’s a long-awaited homecoming. The two met at the festival several years ago and vowed to one day work together, a desire that finally became a reality when Carlsson got in touch with Lundgren to say he needed another pair of hands on a script he couldn’t quite crack. 

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The friends spent a week in a remote cabin and then a few months more working on what would become the script for “The Quiet Beekeeper,” finetuning their poignant look at grief through the relationship between widower Olof and his teenage daughter Lise (Hedvig Nilsson). Göteborg-born Lundgren, who did not have previous experience with screenwriting, tells Variety he appreciated the time he and Carlsson spent breaking down their own family histories and the textures of the small communities both come from. 

“I tried to squeeze Marcus into the classic structure of a story, and he immediately went, ‘No, that is not what I want to do,’” he says, laughing. “Then he showed me many films, and I got it. Marcus is a very intuitive director. I call him a method director, because he is right there with you, sweating with you in a scene, always close.” 

Some of the films Carlsson showed Lundgren include Kelly Reichardt’s “Certain Women” and Bruce Beresford’s “Tender Mercies,” especially Robert Duvall’s performance in the 1983 drama. 

Carlsson praises his lead actor for how well he incorporates the essence of Duvall’s performance, as well as “beautifully” communicating Olof’s inner world despite the sparse dialogue. “It’s great for a director when you have an actor like Adam, especially because I wanted the film to portray what is happening inside the character. We struggled with writing dialogue because we were hesitant about how much we wanted to say, and how much Adam was to play. When I saw Adam on set, it became clear.”

Communicating much with few words, however, was not Lundgren’s biggest challenge. To play Olof, the actor worked extensively on his accent so that it would match the one in the county of Värmland, where they shot the film over the course of a summer. “In the film, I speak with a very thick, very specific Swedish accent usually used for comedy,” says the actor. “Two weeks before shooting, I tried to get out of it because it was so much work. I am glad I did not chicken out because it would not be authentic to make the film in this region and then talk in a Stockholm accent. It’s also an ode to the people from the region, because we are so bad at working with accents in Sweden.”

Filming in the west-central region of Sweden greatly influenced not only the work of the cast, but the overall tone of the film, with Carlsson saying it was “vital” to him to shoot “The Quiet Beekeeper” in Värmland. “It is such a culturally rich district,” says the director. “The temperature and the feeling of the film very much come from its landscape, too. I don’t think I could have shot the film in any other place. It was very important to me.” 

The film, shot on Alexa Mini with 16mm crop lenses, has a grainy, tangible texture that also permeates the beautifully crafted opening credits. “I’m a nostalgic person,” Carlsson points out. “I was thinking about my childhood, my hometown. Those textures of memory, to me, are warm and grainy. I was looking at something similar to what was done recently in ‘Train Dreams,’ and was also inspired by the look of ‘EO.’ It’s such a wonderful film.”

“It was very hard to land on what we have because I didn’t want it to feel like it was digital,” he adds. “We spent a long time working on the grains and mimicking that on the title sequence, so the entire film had the same look and feel. I’m very pleased with the result.”  

Carlsson’s career is deeply intertwined with the Göteborg Film Festival, having won the Audience Award for his 2014 “Dirtbags” and screening his feature debut “Love & Will” at the Swedish fete in 2018. Now, readying himself to open the festival that helped launch his career, the director is taking a moment to reflect on his national film industry. 

“Today, Swedish films do very well outside of Sweden,” he says. “But I wish we had more money and could work on different stories and more original screenplays. It’s been a little more American lately, and I think we have so much great storytelling in Sweden. This film is proof of that, in a way.” 

Lundgren echoes his collaborator, saying that, today, Swedish audiences “do not want to go to cinemas to watch Swedish films.” “We lost the audience’s trust a few years back, and I think we are just now starting to rebuild it. It’s going to take time, so more money would help. It’s like that quote from an old politician that goes: the problem with film workers is that, if you get money, you work. If you don’t get money, you work. And it’s a real issue. Also, I think we must look at the whole country, not just the big cities. If we only look at the capitals, we miss the small stories, and Sweden has so much to tell the world.” 

“The Quiet Beekeeper” is produced by Lovisa Charlier Ginday at Mariedamfilm. It is also part of the Göteborg Film Festival’s Nordic Competition.

The Göteborg Film Festival runs Jan. 23-Feb. 1.