Generally regarded as one of Sweden’s currently most interesting and innovative documentary filmmakers, Anna Eborn conquered her native country by means of international reputation. She moved to Copenhagen in 2006, where she spent eight years developing and cultivating her craft. After working at the Copenhagen cinematheque, she enlisted at the Filmværkstedet workshop project, after which she was assigned assistant jobs on various Danish film shoots and also directed several short films herself, some within the fiction genre. Since 2010, she has primarily preferred the documentary form, which led to further education and subsequent graduation at the Stockholm University of the Arts documentary programme. In 2013, her first feature production premiered at the Venice Film Festival. Pine Ridge, a heartfelt and intimate portrayal of a South Dakota Native American reservation, received a warmly positive reception and traveled festivals around the world.
Together with Oscar Ruiz Navia from Colombia, she co-directed the feature film Epifanía, which premiered at the Busan Film Festival in South Korea 2016.
After that, Anna Eborn focused on documenting Verbivka, also known as Gammalsvenskby (“Old Swedish Village”) in Ukraine, a small area of descendants of Swedish-speakers from the Estonian island of Dagö who migrated here in the 18th century. The short film Baba (2010) features the last eight Gammalsvenskby villagers to speak Swedish, of which one, Lida, takes on a central role. The next short film, Zmiivka (2014), focuses further on Lida and in 2017 the long documentary Lida was completed. Here, Anna Eborn also seeks out Lida’s son and sister, both of whom have been separated for decades, living at each end of the enormous Russian continent. The film, with a Swedish premiere at the Gothenburg film festival and at the Tempo festival in Stockholm – where Lida received an honorary mention – is Anna Eborn’s first to get Swedish theatrical distribution.
In her latest documentary Transnistra, Eborn continues her Eastern European journey, this time to Transnistria, a small breakaway state in eastern Moldova, where she follows a group of young people. The film has garnered considerable acclaim, including the VPRO Award at the 2019 Rotterdam film festival, the Dragon Award of Best Nordic Documentary at Göteborg 2019 and the Guldbagge for best documentary at the 2020 Swedish national film awards. In both her Lida films and in Transnistra, Eborn has worked extensively and innovatively with the 16mm film format, which has brought favourable comparisons with filmmakers like Andrei Tarkovsky, Béla Tarr or Aleksandr Sukorov.
Jan Lumholdt (2020)
Basic info
Main profession: Director
Born: 1983
Active: 2008-
Filmography
Regi:
Transnistra (2019)
Lida (2018)
Epifanía (2017)
Zmiivka (2014)
Pine Ridge (2013)
Baba (2010)
Salon au revoir (2008)
Vildvind (2007)
Manus:
Transnistra (2019)
Lida (2018)
Epifanía (2017)
Pine Ridge (2013)
Baba (2010)
Salon au revoir (2008)
Producent:
Epifanía (2017)
Klippning:
Kalak (2023)
Transnistra (2019)
Lida (2018)
Pine Ridge (2013)
Videoassistent:
Gaven (2008)
Produktionsassistent:
Skyggen af tvivl (2006)
Awards
2020: Guldbagge för Bästa dokumentärfilm för Transnistra.
2019: Dragon Award för Transnistra, Best Nordic Documentary, Göteborgs filmfestival.
2019: Big Screen Competetion Award, Rotterdam film festival, för Transnistra.
2014: Dragon Award, Göteborgs filmfestival för Pine Ridge
Robert.