Swedish Premiere: PASSION by Maja Borg at Gothenburg Film Festival

SAQMI presents Maja Borg’s new film Passion together with Gothenburg Film Festival, Mantaray Film, Folkets Bio, Status Queer and ABF Gothenburg. Due to the prevailing pandemic, the film screening and the conversation afterwards will be limited to 50 people.

More screenings during the festival: Monday 31 January at 12:30 and Saturday 5 February at 15:00. The premiere is fully booked – see here for other tickets
For more screenings please look at Folkets Bios hemsida

Participants in the conversation: Maja Borg, Katarina Nuttall, Patriez van der Wenz. Moderator Annie Karlsson.

Below about the film and the participants (English and Swedish).

Passion by Maja Borg, 2021, 95 min, Documentary:

Passion is an intensely personal film about longing, healing and belonging where filmmaker Maja Borg illustrates their unique process of dealing with trauma in the wake of a destructive relationship. In seeking to reclaim intimacy and re-establish boundaries Borg is drawn to queer BDSM practice, through which they’re able to explore their long-forgotten Christian heritage. Adopting rituals and play from both queer BDSM and Christian communities, Borg finds themselves able to acknowledge and accept their own longings, confronting their darkest parts in order to move forwards. The film tells the stories of queer BDSM practitioners in Berlin, Stockholm and Barcelona and portrays the humanity at the heart of the practise while illuminating its similarities with Christianity on an emotional and perhaps even spiritual level.

Om Passion på Svenska:
Genom lek och ritualer tagna från Queer BDSM praktik och sitt egna kristna arv, försöker filmskaparen Maja Borg hitta nya möjligheter till intimitet och återupprätta sina egna gränser efter en destruktiv relation.  
Med personliga berättelser från utövare av både BDSM praktik och kristen tro, gestaltar Borg gränsöverskridande frågor om längtan, sårbarhet och makt. 

Maja Borg, director and co-producer of Passion, is an artist and film director, working with both documentary and fiction. Their work is as likely to be exhibited on cinema as in art galleries. Borg’s work explores political alternatives and personal ‘otherness’ and is often focused on the deconstruction of culture, economy, sexuality, mythology and language itself. “I needed to re-understand power to understand anything at all. To me this meant walking into the unknown territories of practising BDSM and partaking in Christian rituals and studies. This search for strategies to overcome trauma is the driving force of Passion. My hope is that this film can be part of the growing awareness on constructive and destructive use of power that started with the Me Too movement, in order to move beyond stigmas that oppress pleasure and provoke abusive behaviour.” – Maja Borg

Patriez van der Wens (1974) är en Holländsk film och stillbildsfotograf utbildad vid den Holländska filmakademin i Amsterdam och vid ArtEZ University of the Arts i Arnhem. Med en bas i fotografi är hen alltid på jakt efter stillheten. En stillhet som skapar utrymme för tysta detaljer och djupare förbindelser. En queer stillhet.

Att filma och berätta med ett queert öga. Alltid.

Med många samarbeten inom teater- och performancerelaterat arbete (Konstgruppen FUL, Mycket, Poste Restante) landade hen nu stadigt i en queer multidisciplinär experimentell fas som innehåller hållbart byggande, utveckling av ett queert rum för återhämtning och skapandet samt forskning om mångfalden och användbarheten av naturens oändliga queera resurser.

Marit Östberg är filmskapare, visuell konstnär och journalist. Hon gjorde premiär som filmskapare med ett bidrag till Mia Engbergs feministiska porrfilmsprojekt Dirty Diaries (2009). Hennes filmer är ett resultat av lärdomar och inspiration från de queera communityn i Berlin som hon samarbetat med de senaste 12 åren. En annan viktig inspirationskälla har varit resorna till queerfilmfestivaler över hela världen där Marit mött publik som längtar efter skamlöshet i relation till kroppar, sexualiteter och sex. Som journalist skriver Marit om konst och sexualpolitik och mellan 2006-2008 var hon chefredaktör för RFSL:s medlemstidning Kom Ut. Marit har en magister i litteraturvetenskap med genusinriktning och tycker möjligheten att gå på folkhögskolor är fantastisk. Både studier på Färnebo Folkhögskola och författarskolan på Biskops Arnö har betytt mycket för henne. Marit Östbergs hemsida.

Katharina Nuttall is a film composer, artist and music producer, born July the 14th 1972 in Drammen, Norway. Nuttall lives in Stockholm, Sweden but is a Norwegian citizen with a Norwegian mother and a father from the UK. Katharina is educated in Stockholm with a Master degree in Film music composition from The Royal College of Music (KMH) and Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts. In addition she has a Master degree in Performing arts and media with a major in Sound Art from Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Since her debut 2006 with the feature ”Rosa the movie” (SF) she has written the music score for several film projects such as short movies, features, documentaries, tv and commercials. She is currently writing the music for a number of projects, among them director Fanni Metelius feature movie ”The Heart” and director Hampus Linder´s upcoming movie ”The Feminist” about the feminist initiative leader Gudrun Schyman. Katharina is also writing the music for the films ”Josefin and Florin” by directors Ellen Fiske and Joanna Karlberg, ”En armé av älskande” by Ingrid Rydberg and the movie ”Passion” by director Maja Borg. All films to be released under 2018-2021.

As an artist she released her first solo album This Is How I Feel in 2007, followed by Cherry Flavour Substitute in 2008. Songs from the two albums were put together on the European release Cherry Flavour Substitute Limited Edition, an album that was awarded a German Record Critics Award in 2009. Cherry Flavour Substitute, the second album of the young swedish musician, released on her own label Frances Records, is a great success. On the one hand, it is melancholic, dark chamber pop, on the other hand, the eleven songs of the album glitter almost cinemascope-like orchestrated. Nuttalls voice sounds fragile and elfin, but at the same time it has the energy to be a match for stars such as Beth Gibbons (Portishead), Susan Janet Ballion (Siouxsie & The Banshees) or Polly Jean Harvey easily. An exquisite musical treasure, brilliant in every sense. Für die Jury: Jan Ulrich Welke In September 2010, Nuttall announced that she will be going back into the studio to work on a new album in collaboration with the English producer Head known for his longstanding working relationship with PJ Harvey. The album was released by the record label Novoton in Scandinavia on March the 23rd 2011, with the title Turn me on. Katharina Nuttall has also made her name as a music producer to other artists, most notably the norwegian artist Ane Brun. For more information about her work as an artist and music producer please visit the site.