A Film About/With
Anders Petersen

  • Sweden
  • sv
  • en
  • 52'
This film is currently unavailable.
A Film About/With Anders Petersen

Synopsis

When Swedish photographer JH Engström films his compatriot Anders Petersen (who was also his teacher and whose assistant and friend he became), he's doing much more than making a portrait or a documentary about a photographer. Both are steeped in the same humanity, which informs their photographic approach. It's a desire to render as crudely as possible the "essence" of the human being, with all its chaos and complexity. They photograph a world on the margins which they themselves inhabit; they fit into their images; they expose themselves, literally and figuratively. In so doing, they abolish the distance between themselves, their subjects, and those who view their work. This film, then, is also a work of sincere research, in which both expose themselves, engage in dialogue, drink together, and treat despair with glee. A "Nordic" aesthetic emerges, a blend of rigour and abandon, distance and absolute vulnerability. Between cold and heat, the lens fogs up, and the reflection on friendship, on the human being, becomes a manifesto for photography that goes "right to the bone", the whole shot through with a poetry that disarms.

What you will find in this film

A friendship - A photographer's eye on another photographer - Ander Petersen's quest - A manifesto - A Nordic aesthetic - A raw but poetic work

Keywords

Nude & Eroticism Reportage & Society Analogue Photography Masters of Photography Portrait & Aesthetics

Documentaries about photography, and about the people who make it. 
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What you’ll find

Portraits of photographers, names everyone knows and others you’ll discover here. Films about street photography, war, fashion or portraiture, about printing and historical processes. About the trades of photography too. And then suggestions for going further, with Focuses, articles, interviews, bibliographies.

A small independent team

Documentaries about photography were rarely shown on television, and hardly at all on streaming platforms. We created The Darkroom Rumour to give them a place of their own. We are a small team, and we choose every film ourselves, with no school to defend.

Inspire your photography

In these films, you see photographers at work, in the field as well as in the darkroom. If you take pictures, you’ll often come away with an idea to try. If you simply like looking at images, you may start to see them differently.

How it works 

You can watch the films online, anywhere in the world, on a computer, tablet or phone, and on TV by mirroring your phone’s or computer’s screen. Every film is available in French and English, with no ads. New releases come out on Saturday or Sunday. The trial lasts 7 days, and if you stop before day 8, you pay nothing.

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Further exploration

Selected bibliography

• Anders Petersen, Café Lehmitz, Schirmer/Mosel, 1978. Libraries

• Anders Petersen, Fängelse, P.A. Norstedt & Söners Förlag, 1984. Libraries

• Anders Petersen, Du mich auch, Journal, 2002.

• Anders Petersen, Soho, Mack, 2012. Publisher · Libraries

• Anders Petersen, Rome, Walther König, 2014. Libraries

• Anders Petersen, Color Lehmitz, Cabeza de Chorlito, 2017.

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