Concerning Violence


A feature film by Göran Hugo Olsson

Concerning Violence is a bold and fresh visual narrative from Africa based on archive material from Swedish documentaries 1966-1987 covering the most daring moments in the struggle for liberation from colonial rule. This powerful footage is combined with text from Frantz Fanon’s landmark book The Wretched of the Earth – written in 1960 and still a major tool for understanding and illuminating the neocolonialism happening today, as well as the unrest and the reactions against it. 

Rent/buy on Vimeo On Demand (Sweden, Norway only). English subtitles.

“Colonialism is not a thinking machine, nor a body endowed with reasoning faculties. It is violence in its natural state, and it will only yield when confronted with greater violence.”

“Come comrades, the European game is finally over; we must look for something else. We can do anything today provided we do not ape Europe, provided we are not obsessed with catching up with Europe. Europe has gained such a mad and reckless momentum that it has lost control and reason and is heading at dizzying speed towards the brink from which we would be advised to remove ourselves as quickly as possible.”

-Frantz Fanon


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Production facts:

Directed by: Göran Hugo Olsson
Based on Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth
Narrated by: Ms. Lauryn Hill
Preface by: Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak


Archival footage by:
Lennart Malmer & Ingela Romare/En nations födelse – Guinea Bissau, en före detta portugisisk koloni (1974), I vårt land börjar kulorna att blomma (1973), Mozambique är vårt land (1973)
Lennart Malmer & Per Källberg/Vredens poesi (1981)
Ingrid Dahlberg, Lars Hjelm & Roland Hjelte/Svart vecka i Nimba (1966)
Bo Bjelfvenstam & Jörgen Persson/Vita myror (1969)
Stig Holmqvist & Roland Hjelte/No baas - Nej herre (1973)
Leyla Assaf Tengroth & Ulf Simonsson/Interview with Thomas Sankara (1987)
Lis Asklund/Interview with Tonderai Makoni (1970)


Additional footage by: Stig Holmqvist, Per Olof Karlsson, Gaetano Pagano, Alf Buhre, Axel Lohmann, Isidro Romero, Jean Louis Normand, Robert van Lierop, Lars Westman, Gudrun Schyman, Rudi Spee, Per Sandén, Anders Ehnmark, Jean Hermanson, Yngve Baum, Bengt Åke Kimbré, Sten Rosenlund, Pierre Björklund, Inge Roos, Bo Holmqvist, Sven Åsberg, Jonathan Dimbleby, Bo Öhlén 


Produced by: Annika Rogell & Tobias Janson
Edited by: Michael Aaglund, Dino Jonsäter, Göran Hugo Olsson, & Sophie Vukovic
Art Director: Stefania Malmsten 
Assistant Director: Sophie Vukovic
Sound Design: Micke Nyström
Music: Neo Muyanga


Co-produced by: Joslyn Barnes & Danny Glover/Louverture Films, Monica Hellström/Final Cut for Real, Miia Haavisto/Helsinki Filmi, Otto Fagerstedt & Ingemar Persson/SVTAssociate Producers: Corey Smyth/Blacksmith Corp, Susan Rockefeller & Matthew Palevsky


With support from: The Swedish Film Institute/Cecilia Lidin, Swedish Television/Otto Fagerstedt & Ingemar Persson, the Finnish Film Foundation/Elina Kivihalme, YLE/Erkki Astala & Iikka Vehkalahti, the Danish Film Institute/Klara Grunning Harris, DR-K/Flemming Hedegaard, the Nordic Film & TV Fund/Karolina Lidin, the MEDIA programme, the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program.


U.S. sales: Cinetic Media/Dana O'Keefe


International sales: Films Boutique/Gabor Greiner & Jean-Cristophe Simon.

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