Some excerpts:
Can you tell us more about how the idea of Midsommar came to be and the development, production, etc?
I had the ambition of making a very ambitious Swedish folk horror. Much on par with "The Wicker Man", yet from the Swedish perspective as we have such an iconic Swedish pagan remnant in our Midsummer traditions. Me and my childhood friend Martin Karlqvist started to develop the idea and set out some frames for it. We wanted it to be clearly psychedelic as the genre of folk horror in itself has an even bigger luster when you go towards the world of "Valerie and her week of Wonders" for instance, and we clearly needed a myth, a philosophy and a community that took this into something completely new, yet with a rich and true background into Swedish and Scandinavian history. So we started to construct the world of the Hårga's. Deep into it we knew we needed and wanted an American writer (given that the lead characters coming to Sweden where from the US) who clearly knew how to challenge the genre and make it into something richer and new. Through LA liaisons, we managed to get in touch with writers and I got my hands on the "Hereditary" script. Ari's talent was immensely obvious. Ari was eager to make something in Europe and specifically in Sweden, being a huge fan of Ingmar Bergman and Roy Andersson. So he came. A number of times. For research together with our production designer Henrik Svensson, celebrating Swedish midsummer and of course road-tripping to Hälsingland. Ari's take on the story and world was of course connected to the huge break-up-story that is the main arch and heart of the film and he brought Dani as the guiding light into the story. And we just loved it. This made it into something new, even though being in the world of a folk horror film we had a new way into the genre.
It took us years and years to make the film happen after the script was completed. Mainly due to the ambitions of the film and that we really wanted to this on an unprecedented scale from a Swedish perspective. Ari managed to step into production of "Hereditary" and the success of his first film gave us the possibility to make our film as A24 who had been tracking the project for a long time as they were the distributor of "Hereditary", gave us the means needed to greenlight. We shot the film in Hungary due to many reasons, yet mainly ability of building the complete village of the Hårga's within our time-frame and also having less unstable weather for continuity reasons. Since the film is taking place almost completely in daylight and outdoors, this was a big thing.
What was the most difficult thing about Midsommar?
The scale of it. No one involved in it has done anything like it ever before.
What has been your favorite thing to date about Midsommar?
A dream come true. The impact of this film. Did you see the opening act of the Oscars?
There is a Q&A section that answers some intriguing questions about Midsommar. Be sure to check out the whole interview.
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