“Our film is not about school shootings per se but about parenting”

The film supported by Nordisk Film & TV Fond is vying both in the Nordic:Dox and Politiken Danish:DOX programmes of the CPH:DOX festival (April 21-May 12).

Swedish-born Frida Barkfors studied at the National Film School of Denmark. Danish-born Lasse Barkfors at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. Together, they coincidentally started to work together as documentary filmmakers when Lasse read an article about sex offenders in the US. That was over a decade ago and the beginning of a filmmaking collaboration between the life partners, that gave birth to a film trilogy about social stigma, all shot in the US. Pervert Park, Sundance Special Jury Prize winner 2015, Death of a Child (2017) and now Raising a School Shooter.

“All three films are about fears that one can experience as a parent,” explained Frida [Barkfors] to nordicfilmandtvnews.com. “Pervert Park is about the fear of someone else hurting your child. Death of a Child is about what you as a parent might do to your child, and Raising a School Shooter is about the fear of what your own child might do to others.”

The idea for the film first came while the Barkfors duo was raising the financing for Death of a Child. “In a way, we were tempted by jumping straight into Raising a School Shooter. We were so enthusiastic about the project and thought it would be easier to make than Death of a Child, but that wasn’t the case,” admits Lasse [Barkfors].

Following up on their idea “to give a voice to the people who normally aren’t heard”, using an observational rather than investigative journalistic viewpoint, the two set up on an even bigger mountain to climb: documenting parents of school shooters.

In the film, one mother and two fathers tell their harrowing stories: Sue’s son Dylan is one of the two teenagers behind the Columbine High School Massacre in 1999, one of the deadliest school shootings in history. The boy committed suicide after the massacre.

Jeff is the father of Andy, who in 2001, aged 15, shot and killed two classmates and wounded thirteen other students. He is serving 25 years to life in prison.

Clarence’s son Nicholas shot and killed his teacher, wounded another teacher in 1988, and is serving life in prison.

The events are told through the parents’ perspective, without archive material, to stay away from sensationalism. Intimate footage of the parents’ daily lives, household chores -cutting the front lawn, repairing the house, buying food, and them telling their stories keeps the narrative to its core, as each protagonist goes through an emotional rollercoaster -horror, denial, sorrow, guilt, love, forgiveness, guilt again-, as they recollect the events.

It took two full years for the Barkfors to find and select the three central characters. “In the case of Sue, we used a middle-person, a professor who had done a small interview with her. With Jeff, we contacted him directly and with Clarence, we went through his son,” said Frida, explaining that other parents were put aside - either filmed and not included in the final film, or selected but not filmed.

Getting the trust from the parents was never an issue. “Once they had accepted to take part, they were fully involved’ insists Lasse. But for Frida, keeping their trust was another issue. “During the filming process, we had to figure out when to ask the questions, not to offend them, how they wanted to be filmed in their home, a lot, less, what made them comfortable etc.”

Expanding on their technique, Lasse says: “We use a minimalist way of shooting, Frida and I. We interview the protagonists and follow them in their daily lives, asking them to simply do what they normally do. It’s about connecting to their story, paying attention to everything they say, therefore keeping noise to the minimum.”

The couple first filmed a pilot with Jeff in 2018, then went back in 2019 for a month and a half, travelling across the US.

The challenge during the editing was again to stick to the initial idea. “During filming, we did interviews with a professors who had studied the school shootings and we had the opportunity to widen the scope of the storyline,“ recalls Lasse. “In the editing room, we felt we had great material with him and wanted to insert it, but we couldn’t quite get the film together. Then we had a screening with the film institutes and the BBC and we were told: “remember, you’re supposed to do a film about the parents…” We had lost track! We went straight back to this core idea, after a small detour.”

For Lasse, Raising a School Shooter is simply “not about school shooting per se. It’s about what we can learn from these parents and bring it into our own lives. It’s about parenting, relationships. “

Before filming, Frida admits that she was wondering how such killings could occur, if elements within the persecutors’ upbringing could partly explain such acts, but after spending time with Sue, Jeff and Clarence, she couldn’t find anything usual. “What was surprising to me, is that the mistakes those parents made, weren’t worse than any other parents sometimes do. There wasn’t a lack of parenting, or a lack of love,” she said, adding that perhaps “it’s a perfect storm that causes school shootings, not one particular element, but several factors colliding.”

In the case of Jess and Clarence’s sons, bullying had some correlation with their violent acts. “When you have bullying, communication issues at home, plus liberal gun laws, like in the US, things can become critical,” Frida observed.

Asked about their views on gun politics in the US, and if they see a possible wind of change, especially under Joe Biden’s presidency, the filmmaking duo was sceptical. “We spoke to several Americans who are against gun laws. Someone even said: “we’ll get rid of the 4^th amendment [right to search and seizure] before we get rid of the 2^nd amendment [right to keep and bear arms]. That’s how insane it is. But I’m an optimistic by nature,” said Frida.

“There are stricter measures being introduced on who buys the guns and the type of arms that are being purchased, but ban of guns in the US is not going to happen,” asserts Lasse.

Raising a School Shooter was produced - together with the two first films in the trilogy - by Final Cut for Real co-founder Anne Köhncke. “Anne is a fantastic human being and producer. There were times when we were on the verge of giving up, as the film was difficult to make, but Anne pulled us up more than once!” said the filmmaking duo who served as co-producers through their shingle De Andra. Co-production partners include Les Films Grain de Sable (France), Visible Film (Belgium) and Film i Skåne. A dozen broadcasters have backed the film including DR, SVT, VGTV in Norway, Arte France and BBC. DR Sales handles global sales.