In every true film author there is an incorrigible rebel. Regardless of their beliefs, ethnic, national, religious, sexual, ideological and political background they do not deviate from the idea of offering their own perspective on things, events, current moments of life, burning questions. Such an exceptional film artist is the Norwegian Dag Johan Haugerud, says that he is first and foremost a librarian, and then a writer, screenwriter, director. Film criticism also describes him as a prominent humanist. His novels, short stories and short films, hinted that a clever, educated, but spontaneous and principled film director and screenwriter emerges at the film scene. He approaches like a calm wave that breaks down barriers. He is, as we say in Macedonia, a quiet water that scours the bank. Hauugerud’s films are like that, a single wave causes a tsunami. Very similar to the phenomenon of the butterfly effect. The ease in expressing one character in his films causes discomfort in many others, beyond the scope of the visible horizon. With his films situated in the conditions of rational everyday life in Norway, he awakens a storm of emotions, here in Macedonia, but also in Australia, Italy, Germany.
Dag Johan Hagerud was born in 1964. He received a training as a librarian, and later graduated from the Academies of Film, Theatre and Creative Writing and Dramaturgy in Stockholm and Oslo. Before dedicating himself fully to film art, Dag Johan Haugerud worked as a journalist and as a playwright in various dance and theatre companies. He also has experience as a successful novelist. Music is his second passion, which is why he presents music as a separate character in his films. In 1998, he presented his first short film to the film audience, which is only 4 minutes long, “16 Living Clichés”, in which he depicts an everyday cliché of 16 characters, followed by a dozen other short auteur film forms, including the thirty minutes long “Trouble” (Trouble), in which, as he says, we are faced with two processes; The first being that lies and self-deception often create trouble, and the second that pride has never made anyone happy.
A film with seemingly simple events, yet with strong excitement in the background. Nonetheless, as in all of his films, he follows the simple emotion that leads to complex dilemmas. For this short film, he received the Honorary Award of the Nordic Panorama in 2006. He is also known for the medium-length feature films such as “I am the one you love” (2014), in which the role of the main character, teacher Henriette, who falls in love with her 15-year-old student, is very vividly played by one of his favorite actresses, Andrea Brænt Hovig, who in a long film monologue, sometimes interrupted by scenes from Oslo, tells us her love story, full of self-exploration and self-discovery. This film story is, perhaps, the beginning of the creation of the story for his latest film “Dreams” , in which he creates a reverse situation in the roles of the lover and the beloved. Haugerud, in his characteristically unquestionable observations of the common man and his basic needs, creates situations for us of seemingly irrelevant details, which then become crucial for the completion of an action. As an audience, we absorb these film stories like a “cold glass of spring water”, filled just for us and we drink it all up in a single gulp. Haugerud’s permanent exploration of the limits of bearable emotion is also very significant, but does such an emotion exist?
With his debut feature film, the comedy-drama “I Belong” (2012), he was nominated for six and won four Amanda Awards at the 2013 Hagesund Film Festival: Best Norwegian Film, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay. In 2020, he was awarded nine Amanda statues for his second feature film “Beware of the Children”, while the films from his famous Oslo trilogy “Sex”, “Love” and “Dreams” were awarded the highest award of the Nordic Film Council and the Norwegian Film Critics Association. The film “Sex” was selected in the prestigious Panorama programme at the Berlin Film Festival in 2024. The same year the second film in the trilogy “Love” was screened in the main competition programme at the 81st Venice Film Festival.
His last film “Dreams” brought him the Golden Bear for Best Film at this year’s 75th Berlinale and the Fipresci Award. With this trilogy, Haugerud won over both the audience and critics, and especially the sympathies of the festival selectors, recognizing the authentic scriptwriting and directing sign of the immediate, the sincere. His characters are filled with warmth, love, care, humanity. Open to the horizon full of challenges and open questions, but also a prepared for a duel with their natural sequence of dialogues. Oslo’s roof tops, the ferry back home, chance encounters, arranged meetings, the letter hidden in the diary, the hospital room with a questioning and pleading look, sex in the sea, disturbing looks from loved ones. Overwhelmingly and stunningly real, close, felt. Thank you Dag Johan Haugerud, for the emotions you give us through your films. We will keep them as our own.
Gena Teodosievska
Film Critic
Art Director of IFF Kinenova