Program curator, speaker and music & culture journalist, programmer for Utopia, the Tel-Aviv International Festival for Science Fiction and Fantastic Film, editor-in-chief of Heavy Blog is Heavy, web developer and scifi enthusiast.
Why did you decide to adapt Aniara to film? What attracted you to this specific sci-fi story?
In 2010 Pella and her grandmother saw a theatre play of Aniara and the following night the grandmother got a stroke. They had always role-played different books and when her grandmother got better, Pella started to read the book out loud to her at the hospital. They started to role-play the story, pretending that the big hospital was the spaceship, Aniara. The doctors, crew and patients, the passengers.
That was when the story truly hit us with its existential theme.
״We really wanted to create a ’here and now’ feeling. We wanted the ship to feel familiar. If we were to emigrate on a large scale to Mars today, we’re pretty sure that the ships would contain both shopping malls, bowling parlors and spa facilities. But especially shopping malls״

Especially shopping malls | Behind the scenes of Aniara, Photo by: Kuba Rose
We’d love to know all you can share about the process of making the film – how long did it take from inception of the idea (“we should adapt Aniara to film”) to completed product? What obstacles did you meet on the way and, as you are both accomplished film-makers – were there any special obstacles with this specific film, due to it being scifi, it being an adaptation, an adaptation of a cantos, by a Nobel Laureate?
We acquired the rights in 2014 and started adapting the poem into a script. So it took 4 years until the finished film screened in Toronto 2018.
There were many obstacles making Aniara into a film. The poem has a dramatic structure but is very condensed and is written in verse. It was challenging to adapt it into natural language. There’s not much dialogue and the story also takes place over a vast amount of time.
We ended up having a decent budget for a Swedish drama, but that proved to be very little for a complex sci-fi movie. We didn’t have the prep time or didn’t have enough time to get all the scenes during principal photography. So we did additional shoots where we really stretched the budget using a very small team – sometimes just us and an actor with a shitty camera. There’s some inserts of Emelie that are shot with a mini team in our living room.
In the end one of the financiers, Unbranded Pictures, gave us more money so we could do some additional shootings with more extras that we really needed for the story to come across.

Directors of Aniara Pella Kågerman & Hugo Lilja on set, Photo by: Kuba Rose
Was the funding process unusually difficult or was as difficult as any other film project?
Prior to Aniara we wrote a Swedish language zombie movie for many years which finally derailed for several reasons. So this time we decided that we would make Aniara on whatever money we could come across. We were lucky that a film commissioner, the director Baker Karim, at the Swedish Film Institute, loved the project from the very start and gave us an LOI that made it possible to get the rest of the funding.
We also got an international offer to get more budget if we made the film in English, but this time we wanted to keep control of the project. We also loved our Swedish cast and the language in the original poem.

״There were many obstacles making Aniara into a film״ | Behind the scenes of Aniara, Photo by: Kuba Rose
How was the idea for the Aniara film adaptation received by your environment – was it considered to be “just another project”, was it considered exceptionally challenging? By your friends and family, colleagues and peers, film industry, cultural scene, potential funders etc…?
It was seen as challenging by a lot of people, but we’d made short films that looked way more expensive than they were, and that helped convince people we could do this.
However we underestimated how hard it would be to make Aniara. It took us a year longer than we expected and we ended up finishing the editing at home. And Hugo lost parts of his hair.
Who eventually fully funded the film?
The film was funded by the Swedish film institute, Stockholm and Gotland film regions, Nordic film and TV fund, ViaPlay and Unbranded Pictures.

The movie poster
How was it received? By audiences in Sweden and around the world? Was there a discernible difference between the reaction of festival goers and cinephiles, scifi enthusiasts, and the general public?
The responses have been mixed. Aniara has a lot of fans who really love it but some people hate it or find it boring or just find it gives them too much anxiety.
There are surprisingly many sci-fi fans that dislike it. Part of the reason might be that its bleakness is the opposite of the escapism that sci-fi – at least mainstream sci-fi – often offers.
In the poem, Earth has to be abandoned because of nuclear war. What drove your decision to change this to climate change?
It felt more relevant today. Although of course climate change could lead to geopolitical conflicts and nuclear war.
״There were many obstacles making Aniara into a film. The poem has a dramatic structure but is very condensed and is written in verse. It was challenging to adapt it into natural language. There’s not much dialogue and the story also takes place over a vast amount of time״
When reading reviews of the original poem [EK], I saw the Mimarobe described as naive. On my first watch of the movie, I agreed, but now I’m not so sure. Do you think the Mimarobe is naive, or an optimist? (do you see a difference yourself?)
We see her as an optimist and an escapist. She’s addicted to Mima, sex, drugs, love and technology – anything that can keep her mind away from the existential void and loneliness.

“anything that can keep her mind away from the existential void and loneliness” | A Scene from Aniara
What drove you to choose the specific aesthetic of the ship? Were those just the locations you had available or was there a deeper intent behind the “run-down mall” aesthetic?
It was both an economical and an aesthetic choice. We’re pretty sure that we can’t escape the time we live in. For example, all the science-fiction films from the 60’s looks very much like the 60’s, even if they are to depict the future. Then it’s better to be pragmatic and realistic. In our case, we really wanted to create a ’here and now’ feeling. We wanted the ship to feel familiar. If we were to emigrate on a large scale to Mars today, we’re pretty sure that the ships would contain both shopping malls, bowling parlors and spa facilities. But especially shopping malls.