Anette Gellein

Selected for AFI '25 by Tromsø Kunstforening, Norway.

What compels you to work with moving image, and when did you first become interested in the medium?
I started doing simple DIY films with what digital cameras were available to me when I was around 16–17 years old. It was before I knew so much about film or art. It was a way to question my surroundings and express myself creatively, investigate the political and poetical. I would say that now, but at that moment I had no clue what I was actually doing. I was just trying to figure out my life as a teenager and young adult. Before this I made films with my two older sisters, we would make music, small films and just have fun together. There was no goal for our engagement, it was not a ‘project’. I never thought I would work with film and art growing up. I would also film my friends or conversations, even my best friend the moment she was falling asleep. Adding sounds to them became even another layer to express and experiment. Since then, I went on to study at an art and film school in Lofoten, where I initially claimed to never really wanting to make films since I felt alienated with the focus on film industry and technology rather than expression. Luckily at this school that was no issue, as we could do whatever we wanted. It was an open, free and critical education. 

I feel very differently now regarding many of the things I was against before, for example analogue film has now become something so special to me. I think this is also a part of growing as a person, one can remember and evolve. I grew up with digital media, so I think the boundaries that come with analogue film makes me hyper focused, as I try to get as little useless footage as possible. 

I am not didactic in any sense, so I see myself also working with digital cameras again in the future. Depending on what the project's thematic and conceptual framework is. Right now, I am working on a trilogy project, all in analogue film. Much because of the references and the feeling I try to evoke with the project, which is a lot of 70s experimental film and building parallel fictive alternative historical pasts. Also where I am at right now in my life it just makes more sense to investigate these subjects more. 

Can you speak about the potential that dreaming and altered states of reality offer individuals and societies? How do you feel this is reflected in filmmaking and in your artwork specifically?
I often think of my projects as building fictional parallel realities. Where the mental and real world merge. My works also have an aspect of horror and psychological drama to them. I love how horror and the theatrical can be a way to subvert our heteronormative and bourgeois culture. It goes beyond “acceptable" behaviour, and in that I think there is a potential of cathartic release when making films together with others. Or at least it feels meaningful. We can show the brutality of living and suggest a different world at the same time! I often work with friends and extended family, or just people I meet at the bar and get a sense that we share some common ground, maybe just an openness and curiosity. It is very intuitive and exciting. These connections make it feels like we are doing something special together, we share a dream of a different world. Very immediate and locally in our hometown, but also emotionally and in a wider political sense. Coming together with fellow freaks in my small town means a lot to me! It feels very rewarding and important to be able to work in a setting that is not alienating, but rather spacious and collective.

What new projects or lines of research are currently preoccupying you? 
I am now working on a film project titled Stoner Queen of Hearts. This is the third film in what I see as a trilogy, building on the film projects Love and Greed and Pain and Lust (2023) and Dyke Dreams (2024). 

Stoner Queen of Hearts is an experimental costume drama that follows a fictional local monarchy in my hometown. I will work with many of the same performers as in my previous projects. It will include drama, love triangles and a revolution. Even a ball scene! One of my inspirations for this project is the book Zapatista Stories For Dreaming An-Other World.

This film project will be shown for the first time at Kunsthall Stavanger in February 2026 for a solo show. https://kunsthallstavanger.no/nb/exhibitions/anette-gellein