Lars Westman

Lars Westman (born 27 September 1938 in Östersund) is a Swedish film maker and cartoonist.

He studied art (Kursverksamheten) at University of Stockholm 1963; art and advertising at Beckmans Reklamskola Stockholm 1964; and Swedish Television Producer-school 1969

He has four children and nine grandchildren. He has worked for ten years as a typographer, and has been involved in filmmaking for nearly 50 years, primarily for Scandinavian television. Broadcast more than 280 films in Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Germany, France, US, satellite by Art and Discovery Channel. Three films for cinema in Scandinavia. Prizes in Canada, Germany, Bulgaria, Sweden, Brazil. Gained lifelong-stipendium for filmmakers in Sweden by the Swedish Cultural Ministry. Bo Widerbergs prize for the total production given by SVT, Swedish Filminstitute, Swedish Filmlaboratories, Swedish Filmmakers Union.

Filmography (selected)

• 1966: Habla Fidel (director)
• 1968: Sanningen om Båstad (director)
• 1970: Kamrater, motståndaren är välorganiserad (director, cinematographer & editor)
• 1994: Maria och kärleken (cinematographer)
• 2000: Gå på vatten (director & cinematographer)

Filmmaking

One of the projects, a series entitled AROUND THE WORLD took him to 42 countries.He has lived in West Africa and made 20 films about struggle and culture in Africa. He has depicted what the life of a seven-year-old boy can be like if he is born with a serious skin disease (The Fish Scale Disease) in VICTOR, A TRIUMPH. Together with midwife Signe Jansson he made a film, often shown in maternity wards, whose aim is to make our start in life easier: Birth. He has filmed underwater births in the Soviet Union, several programs on drought and starvation in Africa during the 1970s, several films about child development I CAN, I TRY, I DEAR TO. A film about calligraphy and the role of art in China FROM THE OLD COMES THE NEW. Followed striking mineworkers in 1969-70 in COMRADES, OUR ENEMIES ARE WELLORGANIZED. Portrayed a radioactive accident in Brazil I HAVE CECIUM IN MY BLOOD AND I AM SCARED. As well the effect of Chernobyl accident in Scandinavia LAPS, MOUNTAIN AND REINDEER.

He filmed his mother's life and death during 20 years, FACING DEATH. The building of the longest bridge in Europe between Sweden and Denmark WALKING ON WATER in six years for cinema and television. Films about art and poetry THE POETGENERAL, AMADO BAHIA, PICTURES UNDER THE SURFACE, WHAT IS THE DRAGON DOING IN SWEDEN?, FROM THE OLD COMES THE NEW. About the MSTs struggle for earth in Brasil OCUPAR, RESISTIR, PRODUZIR. At present Lars Westman is filming the roots of Shulamusic in Bahia, a second film about MST, following up the radioactive accident in Goiania and a film about love for Scandinavian television, THE LOVE FILM.

Some of the films

TELEVISION 6 min

DESERT ISLAND 6 min Prize in Mamaia

THE BOX 5 min Prize in Mamaia

DOTS 20 min

BAKA BAKA LITEN KAKA 4 min 8 mm color

Animated black and white 16 mm films 1959-65

THE BRIDGEOPENER 40 min black and white 16 mm 1963 About Biafra and the Atom bomb in the small country Sweden.

TO NOT SPEAK ABOUT TARZAN 40 min black and white 16 mm 1966 Monkeys and human beings at the zoo.

THE TRUTH ABOUT BÅSTAD 48 min black and white 16 mm 1968 Quality Prize Swedish Filminstitute About a demonstration against apartheid

VIET ROCK 48 min black and white 16 mm 1967 Quality Prize Swedish Filminstitute The work on a theater in Stockholm about Vietnam War.

WHAT DID THE CHINESE SAY? Together with Sven Wernström 20 min black and white 16 mm 1963 First Prize Swedish Television. A Cartoonists life.

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? NOWHERE. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? NOTHING. 28 min black and white 16 mm1965. A child's daily life. Fiction/documentary.

THE SCHOOL AT THE SEA Together with Sven Wewrnström 28 min black and white 16 mm1966 Playa Giron, Cuba.

THE SCHOOL IN THE MOUNTAIN Together with Sven Wernström 28 min black and white 16 mm 1966 Sierra Maestra Alphabetisation in Cuba.

HABLA FIDEL Together with Sven Wernström 28 min black and white 16 mm 1966 Fidel speaks to one million Cubans at The Revolution Square Havana, Cuba.

MAZORRA 58 min black and white 16 mm 1968 Mental Hospital outside Havana, Cuba.

THE LINE Workers situation on L M Ericssons fabric in Sweden. 1969. Black and white 16 mm, 28 min.

SECUR? SECURITAS and ABAB, two companies working with security in Sweden. 58 min 16 mm color, 1970.

COMRADES, THE ENEMY IS WELLORGANIZED Together with Lena Ewert 93 min. black and white 16 mmm/35 mm First Prize in Porretta, Italy and Quality Prize Swedish Filminstitute. About a strike in a mine in the north of Sweden.

30 YEARS HAS GONE COMRADES Together with Fredrik Gertten, Uld Södergren. Following up the strike 30 years later 1980 58 min video color

TACKÅSEN IS FORGOTTEN Together with Mats Beckman 38 min black and white VIDEO1971 Migration to the cities.

LAVER Together with Mats Beckman 38 min black and white VIDEO 1971 A mine forgotten.

ITS CHRISTMAS AGAIN. 20 min black and white 16 mm1971 A lonely mans Christmas.

YOUNG AND WILD Together with Birgitta Bergmark 58 min black and white and color 16 mm and VIDEO 1972 Car-born youngsters.

BISHOP HILL 20 min color 16 mm 1974 Swedish emigrants in USA.

CHILDREN'S WORK In the glass industries in Sweden. 16 mm black and white 28 min 1974

DRYNESS, FAMINE, OPRESSIONE Together with Björn Kumm, Gudrun Schyman 48 min color 16 mm 1974 The Tuareg situation in Sahel, seven years without rain. Mali, Niger.

TANGOSI Together with Björn Kumm, Gudrun Schyman 28 min color 16 mm 1974 Portrait of a Tuareg woman in a starvation camp. Niger, Tchad.

JOSIAH WATERSELLER Together with Björn Kumm, Gudrun Schyman 28 min color 16 mm 1974 Portrait of a man selling water in a slum area in Nima Accra Ghana.

CACAO Together with Björn Kumm, Gudrun Schyman 28 min color 16 mm 1974 Portrait of a girl working with cacao, Ghana

MARIAMA Together with Björn Kumm, Gudrun Schyman 28 min color 16 mm 1977 portrait of a girl in slum area Gambia

CORA 55 min color 16 mm 1977 Music film about the Griot Historyteller. Gambia

FULA 55 min color 16 mm 1977 Fula tribes music in Gambia.

FOOD AS A WEAPON 48 min color 16 mm 1977 Senegal's biggest farmer and supermarket owner, alebanes family uses the drought situation to enlarge his company.

RESISTENS, BALANG BAA NYANJI 48 min color 16 mm 1981 A Coup D'état in Senegambia.

THE RAPE OF NIMBA Together with Alf Westman 58 min color 16 mm 1980 Portrait of a black supervisor in the Swedish owned mine Lamco, Liberia.

IMAGES OF AFRICA Together with Dan Schyman 5 - 12 min color Betacam 1996 13 short films about dance, music, magic, theater, rituals, writings, songs and contemporary art for a Congress in Denmark. Ivory Coast, Benin, Ghana, Mozambique, South Africa.

PICTURES UNDER THE SURFACE 48 min color Betacam 1997 A CROQUI-LESSON 28 min color Betacam 1978 During ten years collected material on the process of making art with famous Swedish concretist Lennart Rodhe.

WHAT IS THE DRAGON DOING IN SWEDEN? Together with Lars Berglund 58 min color Betacam1987 A chines Calligrapher living and teaching in Stockholm, Sweden.

OUT FROM THE OLD COMES THE NEW. Together with Pierre Björklund, Lars Berglund 58 min color Betacam 1987 Chines calligraphy and painting artist make art in front of the camera.

WHAT WE SOW WE HARVESTS. 48 min color 16 mm 1987 Uranium mining in Sweden.

ALERT! 58 min color 16 mm 1988 After Harrisburg nuclear accident, the security plans around the nuclear plant Barsebäck in Sweden and Denmark.

LAPS, MOUNTAINS, REINDEER. 28 min color 16 mm 1988 The effects on Sweden by the Chernobyl nuclear accident.

THE BIRTH Together with Gudrun Schyman. My son's birth 1979. 58 min color 16 mm. 58 min.

I TRY, I CAN, I DEAR, Five films 28 min color video about the first year's progress to learn to sit, walk, eat, talk of my son's life, 1980.

DAYCARE CENTER One year about children's contradictions, color video 90 min. 1983.

AROUND THE WORLD Together with Janne Forsell 1989-1997 42 films 28 min color Betcam Poetic documentaries about food, music, art, religion, streets and roads, cities and villages in GREECE, EGYPT, INDIA, PAKISTAN, MONGOLIA, VIET NAM, THAILAND, CHINA, BALI,SINGAPORE, HONG KONG, SWEDEN DALARNA, AUSTRALIA, PAPUA NEW GUINEA, BORNEO, VANUATU,HAWAII, USA, ALASKA, SOUTH DAKOTA, MEXICO, BRAZIL, ARGENTINA, PERU, CHILE, CUBA, TRINIDAD, CAMEROUN, BURKINA FASO, MADAGASCAR,TANZANIA,FRANCE, ITALY, PORTUGAL, SCOTLAND, SPAIN, ALBANIA, BULGARIA, ROMANIA, RUSSIA, AUSTRIA.

URUGUAI-MALMOE Together with Fredrik Gertten 55 min color Betacam 1998 Emigrants life in Sweden and Uruguay.

SAMBAFOOTBALL Together with Fredrik Ekelund 55 min color DVCam 1998 The history of Brazilian football and how to save street children's lives.

WALKING ON WATER Together with Fredrik Gertten 93 min color DVCam/35 mm 2000 Building of a bridge Sweden-Denmark during sex years.

THE POETRYGENERAL Together with Fredrik Gertten 55 min color DVCam 2002 portrait of the poetry festival in Malmoe, Sweden and the manager of the festival Lasse Söderberg.

SILHOUETTE, AN AFRICAN JOURNEY Together with Fredrik Gertten 48 min color DVCam 2002 A Swedish dance company in Tanzania.

RUA PAPA URBANO/ SAO PAULO II 26 min color DVCam 2003 A woman living in slum area in Salvador, Bahia. Honorary Prize in Cine Eco Festival Portugal.

LULA, WE WANT LAND and AS LONG AS HUNGER EXIST

Together with Lennart Kjörling 50 min color 2006-2008 The MST struggle for bread and earth in Brasil.

CESIUM IN MY BLOOD Together with Zenildo Barretto 55 min color 2007 Following up of the Goiania radioactive accident 1987

DO YOU LOVE ME? Together with Niels-Pagh Andersen, Thomas Stenderup 55 min color 2006 My love relations in my life.

GARRINCHA AND HOT DOGS Together with Fredrik Ekelund 55 min color 2007 Football player Garrincha's Swedish son take up the roots.

AMA DO JORGE The Brazilian writer Jorge Amado's work and life and death. 50 min video 2000.

ELEGY A tribute to violinista Nicanor Teixeira's music in Rio de Janeiro 2009 color video 59 min.

Own work

• THE WONDERFUL SOURCE 48 min color Betacam filmed 1987. The connection with African traditional art and Picasso, Matisse etc.
• LUTA 58 min color Betacam filmed 1987. Master Class of Lutaplaying.
• ROOTS OF THE SLAVERY. Alex Haley's lies and the African history.
• SCHIZOPHRENIA. My father's life and Sweden's Schizophrenia.
• CLIMATE CHANGE. The war on the water resources.
• MATA ATLANTICA. A forest once upon a time.
• BASS MUSIC. Jonas Hellborg's music and life in US, Syria, Sweden, India.
• CROSS AND VAGINA. Lennart Rodhe's and Gustav Courbet's art.
• SAMBABLUES. The roots of Samba in Bahia, Brazil.
• MARIA AND HER LOVE. An adopted Brazilian girl's life in Sweden.
• ART AS SCIENCE. With singer Sven Kristersson. 2009
• TO LIVE WITH RADIOACTIVITY. About cancer and leukemia in Sweden after Chernobyl accident.
• SLEEP. People sleeping around the world.
• FUNERAL. Funeral ceremonies around the world.
• HADAR'S TESTIMONY. A miners life in north in Sweden.
• MACUMBA. Slave history and ceremonies in Bahia Brazil.
• RAIN. Poetic film about rain in tropic countries.
• WHAT DO YOU THINK?. My three-year-old son's thoughts and questions.
• IN A REFUGEE'S FOOTSTEPS. About the first political refugees after World War II in Sweden. Roadmovie in Brazil.
• IN THE COW'S EYES. The Swedish writer Sara Lidman's poetical struggle.
• ELEGY. A tribute to violinist Nicanor Teixeira's music in Rio de Janeiro 2009.
• SCHIZOPHRENIA. My father's life and Sweden's schizophrenia.
• CHILDREN'S LOVE. Following my children's love affairs during 50 years. 90 min
• LIBERTY. What are the US doing in Liberia?
• WHAT MY EYES HAVE SEEN. Retrospective around the world. 3 hours video color.