Bjørn-Tore grew up in Volda, a small town of 6,500 people in the Norwegian countryside. To escape the homophobia he faced, he moved to the capital, Oslo.
Now 52 years old, Bjørn-Tore is preparing to take part in the first Pride organized in his hometown. Locally, the event is met with both support from some and hostility from others. Certain religious groups have even organized a counter-protest.
As painful memories resurface, Bjørn-Tore feels his anxiety rising…
Will Pride be a success? Will people fill the streets of Volda?
A documentary short directed by Julia Dahr & Julie Lunde Lillesæter
Production: Differ Media
Photography: Julie Lunde Lillesæter
Editor: Mathias Askeland
Commissioning Editor Aftenposten: Jonas Brenna
Assistant Producer: Johanne Kristensen Sandvik
Music: Jon Olav
Sound Designer: Karoline Fjugstad Wendelborg
Research: Aurora Hannisdal, Johanne Kristensen Sandvik
Special Thanks To Bjørn-Tore Berge
Archive: Nrk Radio, Nytt Livs Senter/Youtube
Interview
Julia Dahr
Co-director
“Even in a country with strong human rights protections, hate-driven violence still occurs and the fight is not over.”
- Can you introduce yourself, Julia?
I would say I am a hopeful and enthusiastic filmmaker who loves meeting new people. With my films, I aim to challenge prejudices and the way we see the world and ourselves in it, build bridges between cultures and question structures and injustice in our society.
How did this film come about and how did you meet Bjørn-Tore?
When Julie Lunde Lillesæter and I first heard that there was going to be a large counter-demonstration against Norway’s first rural Pride in Volda, we were very surprised. Both Julie and I are from Oslo, and we thought it was very strange that there were people who wanted to protest against Pride. It was kind of a small-town-versus-city thing. From there, everything went very quickly as Pride was only a few weeks away, so we had to move quickly.
Often, the process starts with the search for a main character. In this case, we knew about the event and wanted to find someone who was planning to travel back to Volda to participate in Norway’s first Bygdepride. We contacted the organizers of the rural pride and were tipped off about Bjørn-Tore Berge, who lives in Oslo but comes from Volda.
We met Bjørn-Tore Berge for the first time at a café in Oslo, and spoke with him to get to know him. He wasn’t a media-savvy person. I think he found it a bit strange that we envisioned him as the main character in this. But after he had a bit of time to think about it he said yes because he felt it would be an important story.
“What started as a small idea for a local Pride festival quickly proved to have a broader, national appeal.”
- We sense a very “gentle” and “caring” camera. What was your approach from a stylistic point of view?
Julie, the film’s DP, has a caring way of “seeing” people with the camera that comes across in everything she does, and that I think has been essential to bring the audience so close to the characters, and for the characters to also feel comfortable with us and the camera around. After all, this is the quickest shoot we’ve ever had: it was made out of material shot over four days!
- People around the world imagine Norway as a country that is very advanced in terms of human rights. However, in June 2022, a shooting near a gay club in Oslo left 2 dead and 21 injured. Organizers of LGBTQI+ events also receive regular threats, according to Amnesty International. What is the situation today, in Norway and in Volda in particular?
This attack was a stark reminder that even in a country with strong human rights protections, hate-driven violence still occurs, and the fight is not over.
In Volda, the people who started Norway’s first rural pride in 2018 are very active playing their part. What started as a small idea for a local pride festival quickly proved to have a broader, national appeal, and to be an expression of feelings that many more people had been holding inside.
Since its inception, it has become clear that Rural Pride has struck a chord: several other locations in the country have seen new Rural Pride festivals emerge. And many have expressed feeling more welcome and able to be themselves, even in rural areas of Norway.
- How is Bjørn-Tore today? What did he think of the film?
Bjørn-Tore is proud of the film and wants to get it out to as many people as possible. He is glad it has got such a broad distribution in Norway both when it comes to broadcasting, but also that it’s been touring schools in Norway over many years. He also likes that the film has an international life and has been on The Atlantic, won several prizes and was selected as one of the 2020 #FiveFilmsForFreedom by the British Council and BFI Flare.
I look forward to sharing with Bjørn-Tore and the team at Rural Pride that the film will now be available in so many languages on 99!
- What’s your view on short documentaries in particular?
What makes this genre special?
I think it’s an important and very creative genre. Some stories won’t fit a feature format, they just come better to life in a more condensed form. It’s hard for me to understand why short docs do not get more attention. Julie and I have made many short docs and I thought distributing them on broadcasting platforms would be easier as we moved from linear TV and slots.
However, I feel the people buying content are still stuck in the old regime, just with new excuses. They tell us “This is a great story, but we have nothing like this on our platform, so we can’t take it”, which to me sounds more like a brilliant idea to take it and not decline it.
I believe if the traditional distributors really want to act on their viewers being busy people who often pick an episode of a series instead of a whole feature, they should open their eyes to curating short doc programs. I would definitely watch 2-4 short docs together at home in the evenings if I knew where to find them and the curation was good so that the films put together could say something even bigger and more complex than by themselves. It would be like “Black Mirror”, just with short docs. And I would love to see “old and new” short docs together showing different time perspectives and interpretations on the same topic.
I truly believe short docs could be extremely popular if they had a great curator putting them together and the traditional distributors really valued them and cared to push them out to the audience. I wonder if any distributor will be bold enough to try!
- What are your upcoming projects?
For the last 6 years, I’ve been working on a feature doc about trying to find alternatives to escalating, starting with myself and being open to change. It all started with a question I desperately needed to be answered to keep hope in my life: In a world where polarization is increasing, what are alternative ways for us to disagree that build democracy, rather than tearing it down?
When two filmmakers seek to bridge divides on a U.S. island that’s facing land loss, they foster honest conversations about differing perspectives, testing the power of dialogue in the face of environmental and ideological challenges. It’s about how conversations different from the ones we usually have can make an impact, change something in ourselves, our relationships, and subsequently the societies we live in.
In the film, we see how real dialogue can empower people to step out of their dichotomies and to commit to the greater “we”. Disagreements and conflict do not need to be seen as threats needed to be resolved, but rather opportunities for change, growth, and learning. It’s a hopeful film based on respect, openness and listening despite disagreeing.
- Is there a specific film that caught your eye on 99?
Ain’t No Time for Women is so beautifully created and such a good set-up. I also think it highlights the big potential of short docs, to transport us to other places and be bold in the creative language while saying something important. It’s so elegantly done, and I think it is so strong because it has the power of a short.
- What do you think of 99 and the fact that your film is now subtitled in several languages?
I love 99! It’s fantastic to have these amazing short docs in one place! And it feels so special to be able to share Bjørn-Tore’s important story with even more people in so many languages. I wish traditional broadcasters also saw the power of the short docs, just like you!