In March, the documentary “A Portrait of Esbjörn Svensson” will be screened at the Artfifa Festival, the world’s largest International Festival of Films on Art.
The film is included in the finals of FIFA Competition 2018 and will be screened on March 11 in Montreal, as part of the festival that will feature Mathieu Amalric‘s film “John Zorn 2010-2017” the day before, which Jazz Fest Sarajevo audience watched last year within XX1st Jazz Fest Sarajevo. This year, Artfifa’s focus is on music, so the audience will also get the chance to see the movies about Steve Reich, Mstislav Rostropovich, Marianne Faitfull and Jacques Brel.
David Tarrodi‘s film „A Portrait of Esbjörn Svensson“ is an introduction to the world of Swedish artist Esbjörn Svensson, a pianist who died tragically and prematurely at the age of 44 in a diving accident near Stockholm in June 2008.
Svensson was considered one of the most prolific jazz musicians of the early 21st century, and he performed alongside his trio E.S.T. at Jazz Fest Sarajevo in 2003. The videos from that concert were included in the film “A Propos de Sarajevo” by Haris Pašović and they are an important part of the documentary film about Jazz Fest Sarajevo.
„A Portrait of Esbjörn Svensson“ honors this artist, underlining the rich and limitless talent witnessed by members of his family, close friends and musicians such as Pat Metheny or Victoria Tolstoy, while special intimacy to the film is given with excerpts from radio shows and interviews in which Svensson shared his thoughts on music, life and death.