15 Facts About Erik Gandini

Erik Walter Gandini was born on 14 August 1967 and is an Italian-Swedish film director, writer, producer and professor of documentary film at Stockholm University of the Arts.

Erik Gandini moved to Sweden at age 19 to attend film school and avoid military service in Italy.

In 1994, Gandini adventured with a fake letter of recommendation from a small local Swedish TV broadcaster to the besieged city of Sarajevo where he directed and produced his first documentary Raja Sarajevo for Sveriges Television.

In 2000, Erik Gandini founded the Stockholm-based film production company ATMO, together with Tarik Saleh, Lars Rodvald and Kristina Aberg.

In 2013 Erik Gandini moved to Fasad, working alongside Jesper Kurlandsky, Jesper Ganslandt and Juan Libossart.

In 1996, Erik Gandini shot a second documentary about the Balkan War, Not without Prijedor, about four young Bosnian refugees in Sweden who decided to return to their country to join the war.

Surplus's innovative style is the product of a method that Erik Gandini adopts in his very personal approach to documentary film, "the freest, cheapest way for a person to express themselves cinematically".

The film, produced and directed by Erik Gandini, explores how Italy has been pushed to the brink of moral melt-down under the rule of Silvio Berlusconi.

In 2010, Erik Gandini was appointed visiting professor at Karlstad University, Global Media Studies.

Erik Gandini was inspired by his own 'split-life' as an Italian Swede.

Erik Gandini premiered After Work in the main competition of 2023 CPH:DOX, where it became the most watched film on the festival's on-demand platform.

Erik Gandini is the winner of the 2012 Maj Zetterling award.

The prize of 200,000SEK was granted by the Swedish Art Council for his 'innovation of cinematic language within the documentary genre' Erik Gandini was nominated Swedish producer of the year in 2010, competing for the Lorens Award.

Since 2016 Erik Gandini is a professor of Documentary Film at Stockholm University of the Arts where he teaches Creative Documentary.

The research project has been granted funding by The Swedish Research Council, Vetenskapsradet and After Work is the title of a feature-length documentary connected to it, directed by Erik Gandini and produced by Jesper Kurlandsky for FASAD.