Adam Lundgren: ”Filmbranschen har tappat förtroendet för publiken”

·43 min·3 clips

Adam Lundgren claims the film industry has lost trust in audiences, sparking a debate about Swedish cinema's crisis.

1. Värvet interviews Swedish actor Adam Lundgren about his film Biodlaren, co-written with director Marcus and opening the Göteborg Film Festival. 2. Lundgren is the guest; host Kristoffer Triumf conducts the interview; Lundgren is an actor, co-writer, and executive producer on Biodlaren. 3. The episode explores what it takes to make a small, subtle Swedish film and survive the gaps between acting jobs without losing your sense of self. 4. Biodlaren follows a solitary beekeeper with an illegal crop and his teenage daughter, whose relationship is strained by unaddressed shared grief, described by Lundgren as a story about 'sorrow, silence, family, life, love.' 5. Lundgren co-wrote the script over a year at director Marcus's invitation, after Marcus could not decide whether the story was a love story or a father-daughter story — Lundgren's answer was that it could be both at the cost of three-and-a-half hours of runtime. 6. He argues Swedish film has lost its middle segment, surviving only as big commercial productions or niche Guldbagge-winning art films that audiences have never heard of. 7. Lundgren says the industry is 'worst in the Nordic region' at domestic cinema attendance and criticises filmmakers who complain about audiences not attending without examining whether the films give audiences reason to come. 8. The Biodlaren premiered as the opening film at Göteborg Film Festival and screened simultaneously at cinemas across Sweden, reaching audiences beyond the industry circuit. 9. Audience feedback — particularly from people outside the film industry — praised the film for not being condescending and for depicting an ordinary Swedish small-town family without the standard trope of someone wanting to escape to the city. 10. Lundgren describes his dialect preparation: daily sessions with coach Oskar Julin targeting the specific Värmland subdialect spoken by costar Hedvig from Koppom, building from 15-minute to two-hour daily practice. 11. He asked Hedvig and her father Stefan to record all his script lines, then used those recordings to compare against his own pronunciation and identify specific vowel and consonant errors. 12. On the first days of filming, extras from Värmland approached him to ask if he had family in the region, which he describes as motivating him to work even harder rather than relaxing. 13. Lundgren also discusses his upcoming TV4 series Golden Boys, in which he plays Joakim Påsner, described as the 'brain behind everything' in the real-life Tröikatärvan financial scandal that broke in 1997. 14. Påsner was abroad when the scandal became public and chose not to return to Sweden for approximately 30 years, and was recently detained outside Norrtäljeanstalten prison after photographing himself next to a protected facility. 15. Lundgren says he tried to get Golden Boys made for ten years and with multiple directors and roles before TV4 finally committed to the project. 16. He reflects on career gap periods, describing how actors become conspiratorial — wondering if they have offended someone, lost their talent, or received a 'universe curse' — and calls it going 'a little crazy.' 17. When discussing self-worth, Lundgren articulates a principle that personal value comes from relationships and how you treat family and friends, not from career success, while acknowledging this is easy to say and hard to live. 18. The interview has a conversational, candid style with Triumf probing on industry critique, craft details, and personal psychology; Lundgren is self-deprecating and specific throughout. 19. Listeners interested in Swedish film craft, acting methodology, and the economics of small-nation film industries will find this useful. 20. Listeners who do not speak Swedish or who want English-language content about international cinema will not get value here.

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