In her young career, director Malin Ingrid Johansson continues to gain recognition on the festival circuit while looking to extend her reach into the American advertising market. On the latter score, she’s joining the roster of Little Minx, the production company under the aegis of Rhea Scott who’s known for nurturing the careers of filmmakers and helping to successfully establish them in the U.S. across commercials, music videos and other varied projects.
As for Johansson’s film festival pedigree, she first saw her short film Madden, a coming-of-age story inspired by her teenage years on a farm, debut internationally at the Berlinale (Berlin International Film Festival) 2023. Madden was also awarded best Swedish Short at last year’s Gothenburg International Film Festival. Furthermore, Johansson is currently in development on a feature-length film based on Madden.
Now another Johansson short film is making a major splash. Her Deck 5B premiered this week at the Toronto International Film Festival during its Short Cuts program. Among the production houses behind Deck 5B–and earlier Madden–was Pine, a Stockholm-based shop which reps Johansson for commercials internationally.
In the interest of avoiding a spoiler alert, SHOOT in this piece provides a deliberately sparse description of the storyline for Deck 5B. Suffice it to say that the short stars Alma Pöysti as Mia, a mother torn between the needs of her young son and her own desires for romance and fulfillment. Johansson said that she was deeply moved by Pöysti’s portrayal of the recently divorced Mia and considers getting the chance to work with the actress as a major career highlight. Earlier this year, Pöysti earned a Golden Globe Award nomination for her performance in Fallen Leaves, writer-director Aki Kaurismäki’s feature which garnered assorted honors, including a Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2023.
The creative spark inspiring Deck 5B was a slice of life Johansson happened to witness aboard a ferry boat some time ago when a woman’s roller coaster ride of emotions was revealed on the car transport/parking deck. “It was all framed by my own car window,” shared Johansson, recalling the joy and despair experienced by the woman in a relatively brief stretch of time,
When asked how her work in commercials informs her short films–and vice versa–Johansson doesn’t see a cause and effect between the disciplines but rather a shared bond, namely her desire to authentically capture and shed light on our humanity. “I love to tell stories that are small slices of a larger one,” related Johansson. Deck 5B for instance introduces us to a woman who feels the profound responsibilities of motherhood yet yearns to rekindle her romantic life. An encounter on the ferry deck encapsulates that struggle, including the awkward reaction of her son as he sees her race over to a man and lovingly embrace him.
While distinctly and decidedly different from Deck 5B, a recent campaign for dating app Hitch–directed by Johansson via Pine for agency/creative collective Birthday–also strikes a relatable emotional chord. “The Moment I Knew” campaign films feature stories gathered from a panel of Gen Z and Millennial Hinge daters. All the films capture genuine dating scenarios, like enjoying a hot pot date, taking a cold plunge together, and visiting a food market, with people recalling the special moments when they realized that they had found their true love. In one case, for example, it’s when a man sees his grumpy cat and significant male other affectionately bond. No longer needing Hinge, this couple–along with others–delete the dating app. We then see the furry Hinge icon amusingly meet its demise. After all, it’s the dating app designed to be deleted. Lensed in Stockholm, the Hinge campaign–posted last week in SHOOT’s ScreenWork section–launched in Germany, France, Spain, the Nordics and the Netherlands.
Ferry tale
For Johansson, having Deck 5B selected for inclusion in the Toronto International Film Fest is a high honor. “A year and a half ago, I had a blank piece of paper,” said Johansson, recollecting how she grappled with somehow doing justice to that woman she saw on the ferry. “I have a lot of love for this woman. I saw her in real life.” And to now be able to share that woman–and evoke empathy for and thoughtfulness about her–with a Toronto fest audience is particularly gratifying.
And while the ferry boat as a setting carried its own set of challenges, Johansson ultimately didn’t mind navigating through this metallic environment with all its sounds, rumbles and groans. There was also the logistical hurdle of working within the ferry schedule, especially in November when daylight in Sweden is available for a limited time. Still, she was drawn to the ferry boat’s vibrations, and somehow balancing the metallic body and the human atmosphere. “There was something very special in a way to spend so much time in this metallic stomach of a whale,” she said.
Johansson first established herself as a still photographer. She then began her directing career in music videos before diversifying into commercials, brand films, art films and shorts. She’s been shortlisted for the Young Director Award in Cannes in the category “Changing the world frame by frame.” Johansson’s first short film Brynjar was shot in 2018 in Iceland deploying a handheld 16mm camera, a small crew and an intimate documentary approach.
The next chapter in her career is now unfolding at the Toronto International Film Festival and then with Little Minx. Regarding her new production house roost, Johansson said she was drawn to Scott, the shop’s lineup of “amazing directors” and its penchant for adroitly moving between “fiction and commercials, one nurturing the other.”
