"A true particularity that we hesitated about up until the last moment" was how festival director Alberto Barbera started out when describing Göran Hugo Olsson’s montage documentary Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989 [+lee también:
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entrevista: Göran Hugo Olsson
ficha de la película] during his unveiling of the 81st Venice Film Festival line-up. "Obviously in these days, it takes on an even greater interest and value", was Barbera's conclusion regarding the film, entered in the non-fiction part of the Out of Competition section. Not a newcomer when it comes to assembling archived Swedish television reports – his Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 [+lee también:
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ficha de la película] examines the Black Power movement via the same channels – Olsson's latest work has become more relevant, something that neither he nor most others ever expected.

Cineuropa: When did this project begin and what triggered it?
Göran Hugo Olsson: In 2018, I had made a film called May 68 for SVT, the Swedish national television, commemorating the 50th anniversary of May 1968, using only Swedish TV footage from that month. One of the included segments was a report on Polish Jews arriving in Ystad with the Świnoujście ferry, a consequence of Poland’s ”anti-Zionist” campaign in reaction to the Six-Day Arab-Israeli War in 1967. It gradually struck me that a full-blown feature would be interesting to make, assembling coverage from Swedish TV on the Israel-Palestine situation between 1958 and 1989. Those years coincide with the earliest days of Swedish TV, then under state monopoly, until the demise of that monopoly in 1989. After some initial support from SVT, their interest soon cooled off, and other broadcasters and backers were similarly unenthusiastic. It was old hat, they reasoned, void of topical importance. Which all changed, of course, on 7 October last year.

What went through your head, after some four-five years of work on the film, on that day in October last year?
Yes, I started to work on the film in 2018, a crucial aspect of its genesis. On October 6th 2023, we were in full activity, editing the six-hour TV version of the film. We had just finished the episode about the 1973 Yom Kippur War. At night when we were about to leave, it dawned on us that today is exactly 50 years since exactly that war started with a surprise attack on Israel by the Arab states. Wow, imagine that, we said. When we woke up the morning after, there had been a surprise attack on Israel by Hamas. My first feeling was utter distress, both due to the suffering and to the obvious fact that things do not go in the right direction, at all.

Have you changed anything in the film since then? 
Not one thing. But it will still be viewed differently.

How do you think – or hope – the film will be viewed, now that it's heading out into the world, in 2024?
In his presentation of the 2024 line-up in July, Alberto Barbera put forward how Swedish television always prided itself on aiming for the most complete objectivity possible. At the same time, of course, we can always say that there's no such thing as objectivity. What I can say is that we have done everything we can in order to present a representative selection.

Have you made any plans to show the film in the actual region you depict?
Not as of yet, but I'm well acquainted with several Israeli film festivals where my films have been screened. I really like Docaviv, the Tel Aviv International Documentary Film Festival, where I have a good relation with the programmers. They don't just screen for the usual festival-goers, but also for "regular" people, including refugees. At one point, they invited another one of my films, but the screening was vetoed by my American producers, who were part of a cultural boycott of Israel. Such a sanction will be out of the question this time around. I’m very curious and look forward to sharing my film here.

What has been your own impression/evaluation of the conflict, growing up?
In my own surroundings, it wasn’t at all uncommon to have a little cardboard moneybox at home where you collected for Israeli ambulances, while at the same time someone in the family would wear a Palestinian keffiyeh. To me, personally, there's never been a conflict between the existence of the state of Israel and the rights of the Palestinians. I know there's a conflict, of course, but I’ve grown up in an environment where it never was something ideological, rather it was an understanding and a respect for both sides. I hope that the film can contribute to a narrative that contains hope and expectations, for both peace and understanding.