Another of the acclaimed shorts on the festival circuit has been Swedish director Jimmy Olsson‘s 2ND CLASS, the story of a teacher who is the victim of a racially-motivated attack by a male, whose son is in her class. Film and TV Now spoke with the director about his short film, which is significant in light of the recent controversy surrounding Liam Neeson’s interview:
FILM AND TV NOW: Racism is becoming quite a source of concern in the world today, notably with the recent Liam Neeson controversy. How did you approach such a sensitive subject and is it something that you have encountered a great deal in locality?
JIMMY OLSSON: Of course it’s sensitive but I also think its important to address. It was the rallies in Charlottesville 2017 that made me want to write something about it and when I thought about the balloon ”trick” it all made sense. For me it’s about breaking the bad circle and we have to begin with our children, how we communicate with them. You are born out of love and you learn to hate. I saw racism a lot when I grew up, in the south of Sweden. We have a growing problem in Sweden as well since the syrian crisis, it has been growing a lot with a lot of refugees coming to Sweden and people are afraid in general when something is changing in society. People are considered to be aliens and costs rather than human beings in need of help.
FTVN: It’s interesting that you used the relationship between a teacher and pupil to indirectly make a statement about the moral implications of Nazi-ism and it’s effect on the world. Was that how the script was conceived?
JO: Teachers have our kids many hours of the day and they have a big responsibility. I read somewhere that when you are about 8-10 years old, you become more self aware of who you are and such and also you are at a age where you start to question things more vividly. I found the school to be a good place for this story. Then again, who has the right to say whats the truth or what is not?
FTVN: In terms of the social climate of your native country, is Nazism something that has become such a problem in certain communities and the fact that a seemingly loving father could be capable of such acts of horror towards a black woman?
JO: Oh yes definitely. Neo-Nazism is growing and the scary thing is that they look normal in most cases, they have normal jobs and we also have a growing group that I call ‘Suit Nazis’ that perhaps doesn’t raise their right hands and have torches but they use social media instead. Thankfully they are not everywhere and we have forces within and outside government who tries to stop them from growing. Our second biggest party in Sweden is a racist party, ‘Suit Racists’ and they have become a norm now almost and then we have the Nazi movements which are much smaller but all the focus is on them now.
FTVN: Has the film been used as an educational resource to teach kids the implications of bad decisions?
JO: We have just signed a deal with a company that distributes film to schools in Sweden but I’m also curious to see what kind of interest it might have in schools abroad.
FTVN: The use of a red balloon is symbolic of how the teacher lectures the young boy Anton on the morals without bringing up his father’s association. Was this visual motif part of the original script and were you influenced by the famous film THE RED BALLOON?
JO: The balloon scene was the first scene I wrote and yes I thought of that wonderful film, it is one of my favorite shorts actually. I wanted to use strong and vivid symbolism and I remember the first time someone showed me that trick and it came right back to me in that moment.
FTVN: How has the film been received on the festival circuit so far?
JO: It’s overwhelming. It has been out for about 7 months and it has been shown at over 65 festivals in 30 countries so far and it has received about 15 awards so far so I’m really happy about that. I recently won a festival in Spain called Promofest and the grand prize is 1000 festival submission so the film is going to be around for a while so that’s very nice. I’m writing a feature now that is based on this idea from the short film so I’m currently looking for producers and co producers.
FTVN: Finally, what would you say is the proudest achievement of this film?
JO: I’m proud that the film seems to hit home, it works exactly like I intended it to work. It makes people think. I met a woman in Seoul who asked me if she could use the balloon allegory for her son because she had some issues with him being naughty so it seems to be working in many ways.
