Las Palmas
Director: Johannes Nyholm
Sweden/2012/No dialog/color/13min/drama
A middle-aged lady on a holiday in the sun tries to make new friends and have a good time. The lady is played by the lovely Helmi, the director’s 1-year-old daughter, and her new “friends” are all puppets made by her father and his creative team during his 6-month of father’s leave. A sensational hit at the Cannes 2011 (best short film award), Sundance Film Festival 2012, and the winner of numerous audience awards at the international film festivals.
Johannes Nyholm, the director of “Las Palmas”, describes the process of making it:
I was on father’s leave, and planned to make an unpretentious documentary of my little daughter, Helmi. I was fascinated by her energy – could sit there, speechless, just watching her. The film should be shot in just one day, showing her eating, sleeping, moving around. Then the project grew…
Las Palmas was shot during half a year in my small studio in Gothenburg, Sweden. We built puppets, created small scale sets and ordered miniature beer bottles from Peru on Ebay. Most important during the shoot was to have fun and do stuff that Helmi enjoyed. The set was built like a playground, using soft material and cushions, so she could move around freely. It should not feel like going to work. We shot for 1-2 hours a week. With no strict script to follow, the story developed from Helmis sudden whims. You could say that I directed by not directing. The shooting had to take its time. And the appearance of the protagonist reflects this. She crawls into the film in the intro, and then she walks out of it. In the initial scenes she has hardly any teeth, in the end plenty. She grew out of her wardrobe and the miniature bottles gradually shrunk in her firm grip.
You can see Helmi, sleep, laugh, cry. And she is so cute and beautiful and bursting with energy. I still see the film as a kind of documentary portraying her second year and her first trembling steps in life.
http://www.johannesnyholm.se/
laspalmasmovie.com
Selected for Directors’ Fortnight, Cannes 2011
Selected for Sundance, USA, 2012
Swedish Award Guldbaggen (Golden Beetle Award), Best short film.
Startsladden – Short Film Award, Gothenburg Int’l Film Festival (Best Swedish Short Award)
Audience Award – Gothenburg Int’l Film Festival
Audience Award – Hamburg Int’l Short Film Festival
Audience Award – Winterthur Short Film Festival, Schweiz
Audience Award, Encounters, Bristol
Audience Award, Tampere INternational Short Film Festival
Audience Award, Sao Paulo Short Film Festival
Audience Award, Cinesogni, Ravenna, Italy
Best Art / Animation – Minimalen Short Film Festival
Best use of Technology, Flickerfest, Australia
Special Mention, Milano Film Festival
Honorary Mention, Nashville Film Festival
CREDITS
Director/Script/Camera/Editing Johannes Nyholm
Music Björn Olsson, Goyo Ramos
Sound Designer / Sound mixing Johannes Nyholm, Samuel Nyholm
Starring Helmi Hellrand Nyholm
Props Niki Lindroth von Bahr, Amanda Jakobsson
Costume Niklas Nilsson
Puppeteering and assistants Lena Almström, Henrik Andersson, Dorna Aslanzadeh, Gloria Briceño, Verena Gillmeier, Pia Forsberg Godée, Hans Godée, Jacob Grünbech Jensen , Aime Hellrand, Simone Hellrand, Amanda Jakobsson, Andreas Korsár, Klara Lindberg, Niki Lindroth von Bahr, Henrik Löfgren, Henrik Malmgren, Sigrid Nathorst-Windahl, Carl Nyholm, Samuel Nyholm, Silvia Orrego Briceño, Lorena Orrego Briceño, Ossian Melin, Yusuke Nagano, Olof Persson, Li Skantze
Graphic Design Samuel Nyholm
Produced by Joclo / Johannes Nyholm
Associate Producer: Kasper Collin
Co-producer Swedish Television / Caisa Westling, Film i Väst / Sofie Björklund.
Support from The Swedish Film Institute / Andra Lasmanis, Rooftop Films