Ylva Floreman

Media (2)

Swedish journalist, writer, director, scriptwriter, editor and producer. Born as Ylva Daga Elisabet Floreman in Malmö.

-

In 1981 Ylva Floreman published her first book "Lyckopiller" ('Happy Pills'), a study of research into hormonal contraceptives for women. Four years later came her debut film Daughters of the Midnight Sun (Ovanlandet), a short documentary about four Sami women who grew up in nomadic reindeer-herding families, made together with the director and cinematographer Peter Östlund. In the same year, 1985, she published "En Amazon med keps" ('An Amazon in a Cap'), a study of teenage boys working on cars in the Swedish town of Mora. The book paved the way for Floreman's best known, most widely screened and critically acclaimed documentary, the feature-length Amors bilar ('Cupid's Cars,' 1988).

Her work on the book and subsequent work on the film took the four years between 1984 and 1988. The premiere of Amors bilar took place outside Stockholm, and distribution of the film centred on a screening tour arranged by one of the film's co-funders, the Swedish Abstaining Motorists' Association. Similarly, her documentary "Vem bryr sig!" ('Who Cares!,' 2001), a study of young neo-Nazis in the southern Swedish town of Tomelilla, was used to promote discussion in schools.

Alongside these films Floreman has also directed a number of short documentaries. In 1995 she made the experimental Husets själ, själens hus ('Soul of the House, House of the Soul'), in which human beings and architecture are reflected in each other. In this film she worked together with Mikael Kristersson, whose documentary Carl G. Johansson - en vagabond ('Carl G. Johansson - a Vagabond,' 1992) was edited by Floreman. In the following year, 1996, she went back to the far north where Sweden borders on Norway and Finland to film Posti-Marti, lantbrevbärare 1933-83 ('Posti-Marti, Country Postman 1933-83'). In the film Martin, a retired postman, looks back on his fifty years in the job on foot, bicycle, horseback, motorcycle, ice skates, skis, reindeer-pulled sleigh, snowmobile and by car, covering post rounds up to 360 kilometres in length.

Her more recent films are Meantime in Grez (2002) and Love Me the Most (Älska mig mest, 2005). The former is a snapshot of how life carries on as usual in the French village of Grez-sur-Loing on 11 September 2001, the same day as the terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center on the other side of the Atlantic. The latter is a portrait of ten-year-old Nora, who is worried about the consequences of her parents' divorce and their new family situations. 

Parallel with her film career, Floreman has worked as a freelance writer and columnist on publications including Arbetet, Kvällsposten, Ystad Allehanda and Flamman. She published a collection of her articles in 2005.

At the time of writing Ylva Floreman has stated on her website that she has been working on a new documentary film project since 2012. Under the working title "Från nazist till kvinna" ('From a Nazi to a Woman') the film will centre on Sandy, who is about to undergo a sex change.

Michael Tapper (2015)

(translated by Derek Jones)