“Paradise is Burning is a declaration of love to sisterhood. To those who know your story and made you who you are. A bond that’s stronger than everything else.“
Mika Gustafson
The Atlantic DIspatch sat down with Director Mika Gustafson and Co-Writer Alexander Öhrstrand to discuss their debut film, Paradise is Burning.
PARADISE IS BURNING is in UK & Irish cinemas now from 30th August https://www.conic.film/films/paradise
PARADISE IS BURNING
“I’m interested in making people’s heartbeat,” explains the Director of Paradise is Burning Mika Gustafson, a film that is a love letter to sisterhood, and captures the chaotic beauty of growing up in a working-class area of Sweden, on the fringes of society.
Mika Gustafson’s debut feature film is the story of three sisters Laura (Bianca Delbravo), Mira (Dilvin Asaad) and Steffi (Safira Mossberg). Abandoned by their mother, Laura (16), Mira (12) and Steffi (7) spend their days lost in the idyllic arms of youth, running from trouble, breaking into houses, and celebrating coming of age, all under the beauty of the Swedish summer sky.
With no parents around, their life is wild and carefree, vivacious and anarchic. But when social services call, Laura has to find someone to impersonate their mother or the girls will be taken into foster care and separated.
Laura finds that hope in the form of Hanna (Ida Engvoll), an older woman, who is trying to navigate her own problems in life. The lines of their relationship become complicated as they become closer, spending more and more time together, listening and dancing to music, smoking cannabis and breaking into houses.
Laura keeps the threat of social services and her confusing relationship with Hanna a secret from her younger sisters. But as the moment of truth draws closer, new tensions arise, forcing the three sisters to negotiate the fine line between the euphoria of total freedom and the harsh realities of growing up.
From that moment, the fuse on the lives they know has been lit and it’s only a matter of time before it implodes.
BEYOND WHAT WE THOUGHT WAS POSSIBLE
Mika Gustafson’s debut feature film was co-written with Wallander star, Alexander Öhrstrand and the film premiered in the Orizzonti section at the 80th Venice International Film Festival.
“When we were writing the film, we thought how cool it would be to go to the Venice Film Festival, how brilliant it would be to be involved and be part of that,” Mika tells us.
“When we had arrived we thought, of course we aren’t going to win. We had a flight booked home for the Saturday and we were packing our bags on Friday.”
Paradise is Burning would go on to win the Orizzonti Award for Best Director and Best Screenwriting, Authors Under 40 Award.
“We were just happy to be there, but to end up winning two awards was just beyond what we thought was possible.” Smiles Mika.
“To win those awards and watch the screening of our film with Bianca, Dilvin and Safira was an incredible experience.”
In October 2023 the film would also receive the Sutherland Award for Best First Feature at the 67th London Film Festival.
The awards and adulation, weren’t why Mika wanted to become a director, but those movements are something she will never forget. “You know, when you make a film, it should never be about, how many people are going to see this? Or is it going to win any prizes? It should be what you want to say in a film. But of course, it has definitely been fun.”
FRANKENSTEIN’S MONSTER
“I have seen these coming-of-age, beautiful films about boys, who become men, but I have never really seen that with girls,” Mika tells us.
“For the film, I had an idea about kids looking after each other. We travelled to Linköping (where I come from) and to Malmö (where Alexander comes from) and we visited places from our childhoods. We peeked through the fences of pools and villas that functioned as a hangout for kids when the owners went on vacation.
“We talked to people who grew up in the same places as us, and then we built the film’s characters like a Frankenstein’s monster. Soon, we realised that our memories and stories existed in the other’s imagination as well. So, we travelled to Berlin to write together and free ourselves from the specific geography of all those memories. When the film was shot in and around Stockholm, the cinematic world became its own universe.
“When we had just finished the last version of the script, we went to Naples and we saw these 16-year-old girls, and they were so, feminine and bossy at the same time, it was like, ‘this is what I’m looking for, and that’s in another country. “
PLAYFUL AND SOMETIMES PUNK
“I had a very clear vision. I always collect a lot of materials, and references and do a lot of research in the writing process,’ says Mika. “I’m very precise about the tone in the film. I wanted the cinematic photography for this film to feel poetic playful and sometimes punk, all at the same time.
“We wanted the quality of everything in the film to be as high as we could possibly make it. The screenplay, the cinematography all of these should have the highest quality.
“We would look at doing one more editing, one more casting, and everything was one more time to make it the best we could. I think you need to be a little bit obsessed with making it better, writing again and again.”
“We wanted to deviate from what we perceive as the norm of Swedish film, where there is that very noir feeling, where the cinematography is always very stable,” Alexander tells us. “We talked about French New Wave and how we could make it playful.
“When I went to screenwriting school, they would always say, ‘Never write what song is playing’,” says Alexander. “You should always write, ‘upbeat template music’ instead of writing the specific song, and never write the camera movements and Mika and I did exactly the opposite.
“We would write how the camera should almost be like a character standing in the hallway, unsure where or which person to follow and we would also write the specific songs we wanted in various scenes.”
IT WAS A TOTALLY ‘JE NE SAIS QUOI’ MOMENT
“I’m always looking for natural acting,” Mika tells us. “I’ve been obsessed with good acting since I started and how you create this kind of magic between the director and the actors.
“I could really see the point of bringing Alexander into the casting process, because he’s an awesome actor, and he had also been with me writing the script. “
“Mika said that I should always be on the lookout for actors,” says Alexander, it could be anywhere you never know where a person might turn up.
“Around this time I was in the biggest TV show in Sweden, which was set in the 70s. I had this handlebar moustache, and strange haircut, and went to get some breakfast. I heard this voice behind me, it was this raspy teenage girl. I turned around and it was Bianca, wearing an oversized tracksuit, yelling at someone on the phone.
“I called Mika straight away and said you have to get here now, there is a girl who has this energy you talked about.
“Bianca was getting ready to leave and there was no way Mika could get there on time, so she said you have to get her number. And I’m thinking, ”I’m a 40-year-old man with a handlebar moustache approaching a teenager asking “Do you want to be in a film? But Mika said you have to do it. So I asked her, but I was nervous and I took the number down wrong! Anyway, a year later Mika ended up finding her!
“It was a totally ‘Je ne sais quoi,’ moment,” says Mika, “It took us 10 months to find all 3 girls, who were first-time actors, so we then spent 4 months helping to educate them.”
“Bianca is very different to her character Laura and her yelling on the phone was a complete anomaly says Alexander. “She’s never been in a fight before and is just very different from Laura. she’s a very talented actor, a great listener and a learner.
“Mika has this X Factor. She’s a fantastic director. I just have to say that. The actors really trust
her and listen.”
“I think it’s important knowing how to create and build a team around the actors, and how to give them confidence,” explains Mika.
“It is a lot of planning. And then, of course, on set, it’s planning for the unexpected to happen, and to be creative on set as well.”
her and listen.”
I WANT TO LOSE MYSELF IN A FILM
It is films such as Paradise is Burning which made me fall in love with cinema. It’s one of the most exciting films released in the last decade. It’s fresh, exciting, and relentless from the start. Mika and Alexander have developed something which doesn’t play by the rules of how it is believed that films should be made. As Mika says, “It’s punk and it’s playful.”
The performances of each actor bring the story to life. Mika highlighted during our conversation how she wanted everything to be natural and the relationship between the sisters is exactly that. It adds to the authenticity of the film. You are invested in the story because you truly believe that these girls are sisters.
The performance of Bianca Delbravo is particularly astounding. It’s one of the most outstanding performances I’ve seen from a newcomer, and she deserves every bit of adulation which should come her way on the back of Paradise is Burning.
Mika had mentioned how she wanted to make a film that was about girls coming of age, rather than boys, which we have seen numerous times throughout cinema. I think that is what also makes this film a pivotal moment in the history of cinema. It shows that girls can be the central focus of the film, and make it compulsive and electrifying viewing.
We see this portrait of girls in transitional periods in their lives. It adds a layer of complexity to their relationship, with Steffi a young child, Mira preparing to become a teenager, and Laura becoming a woman, experiencing a confusing array of emotions as she tries to figure out not just herself, but life, and keep the family together.
One of my favourite films growing up was ‘Y tu mamá también’ and although the films are vastly different, Paradise is Burning reminded me of it in many ways. The beautiful cinematography, the incredible story, and these characters discovering themselves, having this adventure, all the while waiting for it to burn down.
“I want to lose myself in a film,” says Mika. I want people to come out and say what the fuck was that? I’m interested in what the film does to the audience.”
Paradise is Burning does all of that. It is a masterpiece in the art of storytelling and one that you will completely immerse yourself in and will leave you emotionally exhausted. It is nothing other than a triumph.
All our thanks to the fantastic Mika Gustafson and Co-Writer Alexander Öhrstrand
Thank you to to AR:PR
Paradise is Burning is a co-production with TuffiFilms | Toolbox Film | Intramovies In co-production with Film Stockholm | SvtFilm | I Väst Produced with financial support of Swedish Film Institute | TheFinnish Film Foundation | The Danish Film Institute Produced with financial support of Ministero Della Cultura – Direzione Generale Cinema e Audiovisivo | Nordisk Film & Tv Fond | Eurimages | The Swedish Arts Grants Committee Developed with the support from Creative Europe. A Swedish, Danish, Finish and Italian Co-Production in Accordance with The 1992 European Convention On Cinematographic Co-Production Produced in collaboration with Triart Cinemanse Dr | Yle | Tall& Small Film | I Öst Stockholm Debut.