Written by Kianna Best on Jun 12, 2023. Posted in Awards and Festivals

YDA Week Kicks off with Jonas Åkerlund interview

Leading up to their ceremony in Cannes, the Young Directors Awards (YDA) will be hosting  a series of conversations with a number of industry professionals with Shots magazine co-editor Danny Edwards. From the 12-16 June, film industry heavy hitters such as Oscar-winning director Edward Berger and Bafta-winning Sharon Horgan will delve into their experiences and insights into their respective fields. Today, YDA week kicked off with RSA Films’ Jonas Åkerlund.

In the first instalment of YDA Week, Åkerlund sat with Edwards for just over 30 minutes going through 6 things about himself and his career, During the interview, Åkerlund explored everything from the film that inspired him to want to be a director to what he has learnt working through the industry. With no direct pathway into directorship, from 12 months of military service to navigating Sweden’s less than developed commercial television back in his early career days, Åkerlund started out as an editor, after his drumming career was put on the backburner.

Image courtesy of RSA

Eventually, after a few years of curating what he wanted to see in his edit room and offering suggestions to improve the quality of what he was receiving, Åkerlund recognised that at the root of it, he was in fact a director. This revelation catapulted the start of his career which has led to working on some of the most audacious projects for notable music artists such as Madonna, Beyonce, Coldplay and Lady Gaga as well as recent Netflix project Clark starring Bill Skarsgård.

Noting commercials a his first point of inspiration when working in the visual industry, Åkerlund credits that space as his learning ground. But his point of reference extended to the larger scale screen work from directors such and Roy Anderson and Jean Paul Goude, citing Cannes as the centre of knowledge and inspiration which has been carried throughout his work to this day.

“These people became my idols,” Åkerlund  commented on the inspirations he had in the visual industry. “I switched from Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin to Jean Paul Goude being my big source of inspiration, and I couldn’t get enough of it.”

Bill Skarsgård in Netflix's Clark (Image courtesy of Netflix)

Regardless of leaving his dreams of becoming a drummer in the past, music has been a constant in Åkerlund’s creative journey, fascinated by the spectacle of it all from the fashions to the visuals. Much like the rest of his career, the director organically segued into the music video creating sphere, contributing to filmed content for his musician friends, not quite the norm for the era in which they were created for Sweden, but in hindsight ahead of the time. Whilst not understanding the purpose of the filming, Åkerlund fell into working on a video for internationally recognised Swedish band Rock Set, catching a glimpse of the world of creating music videos and the potential of how far those could travel to audiences.

No stranger to controversy, but determined to keep his creativity and individuality at the heart of his work, Åkerlund career is coated in the defiant rockstar elements that fuelled him from the start. Rolling with the flow of wherever his passions take him, the director is not limited to his overarching title, more concerned with whichever role he has to hold in order to squeeze the best quality out of what he works on. In the days ahead, YDA Week will feature talks with All Quiet on the Western Front director Edward Berger and The Elephant whisperers producer Guneet Monga, Bafta-winning actor, writer, producer and director Sharon Horgan, as well as VFX consultant and former CEO of Digital Domain Ed Ulbrich.