Erik Gandini (1967) is an Italian-Swedish film director, writer, and producer and one of the co-founders of production company ATMO. He moved to Sweden aged 19 to attend film school and avoid military service in Italy. After having completed a master’s degree in film science at Stockholm University, he started working as a documentary filmmaker. Raja Sarajevo for Sveriges Television was his first documentary he directed and produced. The film, shot on a small Hi-8 camera, followed four young friends trying to survive the brutality of the siege. In 2001, he co-directed with Tarik Saleh the documentary film Sacrificio – Who Betrayed Che Guevara? The film centers around Ciro Bustos, Che Guevara’s Argentinian lieutenant and the person who was often blamed as guilty of Che’s death. Surplus: Terrorized into Being Consumers is a film odyssey about the destructive sides of consumer culture, shot in Sweden, USA, China, India, Cuba, Hungary and Italy over a three-year period and described as “a global doomsday satire set to music”. His next movie, Gitmo – The New Rules of War, premiered at IDFA in 2005. It is a documentary about the Guantanamo Bay detention camp by Erik Gandini and Tarik Saleh. Erik Gandini’s 2009 feature-length documentary Videocracy was one of his most successful films. The film explores how Italy has been pushed to the brink of moral melt-down under the rule of Silvio Berlusconi. When it premiered at the Venice International Film Festival, its trailer was banned by Italian state broadcaster RAI, stirring an international controversy. It climbed to the fourth position on the Italian Box Office the first week end and was voted best documentary film at the Toronto Film Festival by a critics poll. His latest film The Swedish Theory of Love will be presented during 13. edition of the festival Millennium Docs Against Gravity.
2016-04-17
