Reykjavík Grapevine - 22.03.2019, Blaðsíða 41

Being
Believed
'Fyrirgefðu’ tackles the hidden problem
of queer abuse
Words: Hannah Jane Cohen Photos: Art Bicnick
When actress Ingunn Mía Blön-
dal and writer and director Loví-
sa Lára Halldórsdóttir decided to
make a short film together, they
wanted to push boundaries, but
definitely didn’t expect to find
a worldwide audience for their
work. The film, ‘Fyrirgefðu’ (‘I’m
Sorry’), tells the story of abuse in
a queer relationship and has found
unprecedented resonance in both
the queer and straight commu-
nity, being screened everywhere
from Iceland and America to Rus-
sia, Australia, Nigeria, India, and
beyond.
Personal pain
The film was primarily inspired
by Ingunn’s personal experiences
with abuse. “I have been abused by
a girl and I met a lot of resistance
when I told that story, being told
it didn’t happen because it was a
girl,” she explains. “I’m queer and
I wanted to talk about queer re-
lationship abuse because it’s not
talked about at all.”
Lovísa realised this wasn’t an
isolated experience. “I remember I
was with friends and we were talk-
ing about a queer friend of ours
and they were saying, ‘Oh, he’s so
dramatic, he is always fighting
with his boyfriend’ and then they
just went on talking,” she says in-
credulously. “That
always stuck with me
because imagine if it
was said about a man
and a woman. No one
would say that so
casually. Why do we
skate over that as if
it is not abuse?”
I n g u n n a l s o
wanted to bring an-
other facet of abuse
into the equation—
that relating to phys-
icality. “I was also in an abusive
relationship with a guy for many
years and people tend to disbe-
lieve it because he was smaller and
thinner than I am,” she explains,
“which is why it was important to
me that the girlfriend in the movie
is smaller than me. I don’t give a
shit about appearances but this
was important. Abuse is not about
bodies.”
Trust & intensity
The film tells the story of Addý
and her girlfriend Salka, a rela-
tionship which looks perfect from
the outside. One day at work, a
co-worker of Addý’s helps a friend
of hers who is being
abused and seeing
that makes Addý re-
alise the flaws in her
own relationship.
With a topic so
close to home, the
filming process was
intense, but the trust
b et we en t he t wo
long-time friends
made it possible. “I
usually don’t want
actors to go into
their own experiences because
it can be emotionally draining
and take them to dark places,”
explains Lovísa. Ingunn, though,
felt safe and supported on the set.
“I would tell Lovísa, say my trigger
three times and I will cry. Then
we should shoot and I trusted her.
In my mind, I knew I was helping
people talk about something that
had been shut down for too long,
which helped,” she says.
Finding hope
The initial months of the produc-
tion were hard, particularly due
to a disturbing experience at their
film school. “There was a teacher
who said it wasn’t rape because
there was no penetration. There
was no penis,” Ingunn reveals.
“We felt, OK, is this a real perspec-
tive? He wanted us to change it, he
wanted me to have a knife. He said
there was no threat. If the girl was
not going to rape her, why doesn’t
she have a knife?”
But while it was a discour-
aging experience for the two—
particularly given the sensitive
subject matter—the responses
from actual filmgoers and those
within the industry was radically
different. At the most recent fes-
tival in New York, they even had
performers from Stonewall in at-
tendance. “What Ingunn gave me
was a challenge,” says Lovísa. “It’s
something that people who are not
queer don’t think about, but I’m
happy they are thinking about it
now.”
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Lovísa and Ingunn
“I wanted to
talk about
queer re-
lationship
abuse be-
cause it’s not
talked about
at all.”
Opening minds about queer abuse