Linda Hambäck: “The festival market is more important than ever”

Doing it her own way: The Swedish filmmaker who keeps her animation company small, relies on her own imagination, and is ready to spend five years or more in getting a new feature made.

Since she founded her Stockholm-based company LEE Film in 2011, Swedish filmmaker Linda Hambäck has enjoyed considerable success with her animated features Gordon & Paddy, a premiere at the Berlinale Generation Kplus in 2018, and The Ape Star (Apstjärnan), which played in competition in Annecy in 2021. Both were supported by the Nordisk Film & TV Fond. Now, she is preparing her new NFTVF supported project Me, Dante and the Dump (Jag, Dante och miljonerna). This will be sold internationally by Montreal-based Attraction Distribution.

Fiercely independent, Hambäck keeps control of her projects at every step of the way.

How and why did you set up LEE Film?

I started the company in 2011. I was going to have a 10 year anniversary when Covid hit - so there was no party! I had been working before at another animation production company, Filmtecknarna, doing mostly commercials and some short films, [but] I wanted just to be on my own, I think. If you talk to anyone in the animation industry, the development time and everything else is so long - so you really need to love the material you work with. It’s like going into a relationship for five to seven years! The journey is to drag that piece [the animated film] around many years in development and to have that energy and strength - you take it up the mountain, then you go into the woods and the swamp, and then, eventually, out comes a film.

Who are your inspirations, the animators you most admire?

I really like Cartoon Saloon’s work, of course Miyazaki’s work, but also [Marjane Satrapi’s] Persepolis. I just love those directors who have their own tone. I am not coming from an animation background. I came from the live action industry, but I fell in love with animation 15 years ago when I started to work with it. It suits me as a person very well because it is so structured. You work every day. I call animators cultural marathon runners. You need to be able to maintain your energy, your voice, your tone, over a long, long period of time. Every day, you make a decision that will be seen in the film months afterwards, and you will live with it.

How easy is it putting together animated films in the Nordics?

If there was a lot more money for animation in the Nordic countries, then it would be easier to put together a bigger team. [But] especially in Sweden. Sweden is not so big in animated film. Norway and Denmark have much higher budgets in animation than Sweden. That’s because of how much money the Film Institute and financiers have.

How big is LEE Film?

It is only me that owns the company. I don’t have anyone employed. I work with freelancers during the films’ production time.

Given the labour intensive nature of animation, that must be a huge challenge.

I work with Dockhus Animation in Trollhättan. That is the animation studio I always come back to and work with. For The Ape Star and for this upcoming film, Me, Dante and the Dump, we are also working with the co-producers team, Mikrofilm in Norway and Nørlum Studios in Denmark, both highly acclaimed studios and I am so happy to have them both onboard again as co-producers. During production we will be about 30 people on board.

How did you find this new project, Me, Dante and the Dump?

It’s a short novel for children from the same author who wrote “The Ape Star”, Frida Nilsson. I would consider her as Sweden’s Roald Dahl. I love her tone. She is really snappy, very straightforward. Like Dahl, whom I also love, she is very frank about these characters that are awful people sometimes. In all her stories that I have read, it’s David and Goliath - the small person fighting against the rest of the world, but through an inner journey, and I love that.

How are you funding it?

We have Creative Europe, the Swedish Film Institute, the Norwegian Film Institute, the Danish Film Institute, Film i Väst, SVT, DR, Vestdansk filmpulje, TriArt Film, Attraction distribution and Nordisk Film & TV Fond so far.

Is the animation style on the new project the same as before?

It is going to be a little different. It is cut-out animation. It’s really hard to finance animation right now. All the prices have gone up. We are excited to go for this. If it works well, we will continue to do this. The team is also keen to learn a new way of doing animation.

Do you take on service work as well?

I work with one [film] in development and one in production. That’s because you put so much time into each project, your soul and everything. As I have my own company, this is my way to work also as an artist, having control over what you want to produce and direct. I would not dream of having a big company with 30 employees.

How do you regard AI? What are the pros and cons?

Work will go faster…but maybe that’s my weakness. I’m not so good at AI, and I don’t understand it so much. So far, I didn’t work with AI at all. Until now, I haven’t approached it. But I am sure that AI will be part of everyday work life for all of us very soon, so I’d better sharpen up and learn.

How do you develop animation for young audiences that reach them? What is the hook or the key element that can get their attention?

If you ask a children’s book writer, they would say the same - that it is in your head and how you reflect on the world. When you cycle to work, you can have these conversations in your head between a squirrel and a tortoise. I love that. It’s about playing around. It just so happens I can work with that and make a living - and it also so happens that the children like it too. I don’t work so much with focus groups. It’s my way of telling stories. I think there is so much in our industry that wants to push for that algorithm, but that is not how I work as a creative person.

Do you have interest in 360 universes (film, TV, game, merchandise)?

The hours are only 24 per day, and you need to focus your time. Probably if I had a bigger company - which I don’t want to have - then, of course, I would broaden that. But I think other people are better at doing that.

Is there a life for originals?

That question is a great question. The way it looks now, it looks as if the [animation] world will be divided into two parts. One will be very broad, to fit everyone, like these big DC world films. But then there will be these very independent films that Disney will use as a background to make its broader films. They will all benefit from each other. But it all depends on what type you are as a creative person. I enjoy some of these broader films, but I am not so interested in that kind of filmmaking where someone will own you for a long period of your life. That is one way to do it. The other way is to try to create something you will live with for a long time.

How important are festivals for your animation?

I think the festival market is more important than ever. If you’re doing it right, and open at a great festival, then the distribution takes off and audiences will be able to access the film in many territories. It’s also about promoting films for film lovers. When you go to a festival, you come to an audience that loves film. That is what I have been missing for a long time. If you go to see a film in Sweden, you can enter a theatre with 300 seats and it’s like 15 people in the audience. Going to a film festival, you as a filmmaker and the audience are both excited to be in the same room. That creates a fantastic energy.