Today we’d like to introduce you to Agnes Skonare.
Hi Agnes, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I grew up in Stockholm as the middle child in quite a loud family. We’re three sisters close in age with similar strengths and interests, and so you had to find a way to distinguish yourself if you wanted to be heard and seen.
My love for movies really started with a love for acting – as a child, you relate to what you see, and what I saw was actors, characters, people… I went to theatre school, did a few smaller acting gigs, but I struggled accepting the lack of control you have as an actor. I just wasn’t fit for it. But I loved the world of fiction and felt very at home in that space. So I kept exploring my own ideas, that eventually turned into projects, little films… and that’s kind of how things started for me.
My first movies were mostly my family members dressed up as pigs, celebrating holidays or getting into fights. I had my boyfriend act as my sister’s lover in another one. Slowly, I built a library of pretty horrible movies, haha!
Eventually, I got to work as a writing assistant and various other jobs on film sets, learning more about the business while I kept developing my own ideas. One day, I got accepted to Columbia University School of the Arts Film MFA as a screenwriting / directing student. I spent the following four years in New York, making movies, writing, learning… Columbia has been incredibly important as it allowed me to fully plunge into the art of filmmaking and storytelling with no distractions.
I graduated about six months ago and recently moved out to LA. My latest short film, “Berry Pickers,” was my thesis project at Columbia. It is currently at the end of its festival round, having screened at Telluride “New Filmmakers” program, won “University Short Film Award” at Hamptons International Film Fest, been nominated at Palm Springs ShortFest, to name a few. The film is a pilot for my feature project with the same title and theme.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
It’s been an incredibly fulfilling journey, though of course there have been challenges along the way. Being far away from family and my partner when moving to the US was definitely tough. Never being able to plan ahead, navigating a lot of uncertainties and long waiting times are other ones. Uncertainty and patience are both just parts of being in a people-driven industry, I think. But I definitely struggle with this, personally.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
As a writer / director, my work is rooted in character-driven stories that live in the world of social realism, often focused on characters trapped in claustrophobic situations or relationships. My latest short film “Berry Pickers” is currently screening at festivals and is a proof of concept for my feature film with the same title and theme.
“Berry Pickers” the feature follows two brothers’ search for blueberries in Swedish forests, a summer when Sweden has been hit by an unexpected heatwave. Strongly inspired by true events, Berry Pickers is a tale about two young brothers who struggle to find their path whilst forced to navigate the dark forces of globalization and a burning climate.
Each summer, thousands of Thai men and women travel to Sweden hoping to make money through berry picking. The berry pickers are covered by minimum wage, but a combination of language barriers, lack of transparency and desperate agendas have created a situation where many workers aren’t properly informed of their rights. The extreme pressure on quantity forces workers to wake up at 02:30am and work until midnight, picking 100-200 kg of berries a day. The systematic abuse of Thai workers has raised strong reactions in Thailand, but few are aware of the situation in the rest of the world. With Berry Pickers, I hope to give voice to a group who has yet to reach out with their stories.
I recently came back from Thailand where I finalized my research, speaking to ex-berry pickers in Isan, recently returned from having picked berries in Sweden. The trip deepened my understanding for their situation and motivations and left me even more convinced that this story needs to be told.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.agnesskonarekarlsson.com
- Instagram: skonare
