Month: June 2023

Recorded at a summer camp on the edge of the North Sea, Leaps and Dunes captures children in the process of growing up.

Leaping across the sands, swimming too far out in the water, investigating the mysteries held by the girl’s bathroom… this documentary places the listener amidst the swirls of cigarette smoke, on mischievous midnight expeditions and in the middle of awkwardly slow dancing young adults. A poetic portrait of a summer spent away from parents.

This documentary received a special commendation at the Prix Italia in 2001.

Rikke Houd has produced work for NRK, SR, Third Ear, BBC, Radio24syv, DR, RÚV, KNR, CBC, ABC and more. Her work has been broadcast internationally and screened widely – at Sheffield Doc Fest, In The Dark, CPH:DOX, Tempo Documentary Festival and Reykjavik International Film Festival and more. She was a Prix Italia Finalist and Special Mention in 2001, 2014 and 2015; was featured on the Prix Europa shortlist (2005, 2006, 2007, 2012, 2013) and won the In The Dark Award at Sheffield Doc/Fest in 2015.

Sabine Hviid now works as a production designer for films and television. Together with Rikke Houd she founded Polar Radio in 2004, a non-profit project that aims to help youth in remote communities or youth belonging to minority groups articulate important issues through radio features and creative radio pieces. She won the Robert (2015) and the Kodak Commercial (2003) Awards for Best Production Design.

A short documentary from one of Susanne Björkman’s first radio assignments. A serendipitous recording of a lonely man in a ‘Beer Cafe’ in Malmö. As Susanne approached his table, he began a spontaneous monologue about his loneliness, which lasts the length of the song playing on the jukebox in the background.

Susanne Björkman was born in 1946, beginning her radio career at the Swedish Radio Company in 1971 and working exclusively in documentary form from 1976. She’s a garlanded feature-maker winning awards such as the Prix Italia, the Jörgen Ericsson Award and the Ikaros. In 1990 she became Sweden’s first professor in radio production at the Drama Institute in Stockholm. Susanne’s programmes are often portraits of people she has spent extensive time with, recording what happens in their lives. What is recorded is both an external and an internal process. The conflicts or themes that crystallise during the recording are often quite separate from the genesis of the documentary.