Filmform (est. 1950) is dedicated to preservation, promotion and worldwide distribution of experimental film and video art. Constantly expanding, the distribution catalogue spans from 1924 to the present, including works by Sweden’s most prominent artists and filmmakers, available to rent for public screenings and exhibitions as well as for educational purposes.
Rodney King is included in the film ‘Information is Free’, which consists of eight short films/music videos. They explore and deconstruct political, religious and private events from a media perspective. Erik Pauser and Johan Söderberg use their own images and appropriated material from various TV-channels. Rodney King was the black man who was brutally assaulted by the Los Angeles police. The event was filmed by a witness and broadcasted by a local TV station. The police were aquitted at the trial by a jury consisting of only white jurors, in spite of overwhelming evidence. The event was the spark that set off the extensive riots in Los Angeles 1993.
Erik Pauser is active as a director, producer and artist and works with film, visual arts, installation and stage performances.
Erik Pauser has produced and directed around 20 longer international documentaries and a number of shorter films.
His films and works are often based on social and historical processes. The film The Two Faces of Roman Martinez is about three generations of American war veterans who suffer from PTSD. This work led him to make the film The Face of the Enemy, which depicts the experiences of Vietnamese war veterans from what they call the American War, the war known in the West as the Vietnam War. Together with the photographer Lars Tunbjörk, he made the film Maskinen about the poet Johan Jönson. He has collaborated with Michael von Hausswolff, with Leif Elggren, Cecilia Parsberg and Johanna Ekström and a number of other artists and filmmakers. Together with Johan Söderberg, he has produced and directed the films Information is Free and Electronic Pollution as well as the feature film Lucky People Center International, which was produced by Lars Jönsson and Memfis film. Erik Pauser was executive producer for the English feature film Swimming with Men, which premiered in July 2018 in UK cinemas. Right now he is working on a film about the artist Leif Elggren.
Erik Pauser has been active as an artist primarily with installations and visual art. His works have been shown at exhibitions in Europe, Asia and the USA. Recent projects include the film and installation A Place in Europe that he made in collaboration with Cecilia Parsberg. The film was shown on cinema and TV in Sweden and as an installation version that toured Swedish cities. With the artist and writer Johanna Ekström, he made a series of projects, including the installation Brott, which was first shown at Färgfabriken in Stockholm. The exhibition consisted, among other things, of a large estate that had been ground to pieces. The project also resulted in a performance at Dansen Hus in Stockholm. The films The Two Faces of Roman Martinez and The Face of the Enemy about the two sides in the Vietnam War were also shown as installations at, among others, the Norrköping Art Museum and the Konsthallen Gothenburg.
During the 1980s, together with Carl Michael von Hausswolff and Ulrich Hillebrand, he ran one of Sweden’s most noted record companies/culture companies, Radium 226.05. The company released artists such as Freddie Wadling, Union Carbide productions, Sator Codex, Blue for Two as well as a series of pioneering experimental records with Leif Elggren among others. Radium also ran a gallery, organized festivals, produced short films, exhibitions and published a magazine. During Radium’s 7-year history, the company issued approx. 70 CDs and LPs.
Johan Söderberg
Born in 1962 in Bollnäs, Sweden. Currently based in Stockholm.
Johan Söderberg is a director and editor of international film and documentary. Making music videos, he has worked with Madonna among others. He was a member of the Lucky People Centre, a Swedish artist collective, best known for their ambient music, and for whom Söderberg together with Erik Pauser directed Lucky People Centre International (1998). Söderberg is currently a Professor at Dalarna University and the artistic leader of the unique Audiovisual Production education, a new 3 year artistic education that opened in 2010.
