Bygningsarbeidere priset i Milano

I forbindelse med visningen i Milano har festivalen publisert følgende "director's statement":
The script for Deconstruction Workers is old. It was supposed to be in a live television show, as a comic relief. There were also stories about some nurses, some policemen and some farmers. But it never worked out, the ideas were too long and the animation too expensive. Later we decided to make one of the scripts into a short film, and ended up with Deconstruction Workers. It was something new to me, since I never worked with a scriptwriter before. I had to approach the script differently, trying to understand the intensions in the story and try to make it funny. That's was all I wanted it to be, funny and entertaining.

When I make a film I try to do something new every time. In Deconstruction Workers the challenge for me was all the dialog, and to try to make the dialog "visible" with all the action taking part in the background. Later I understood why I liked the story so much. I've made two animated documentaries previously. A film about me is exactly what the titles says, and Leonid Shower (co-directed with Julie Engaas) about what people are wishing for. My story isn't that interesting, I'm fairly healthy and both my parents are still alive. And nearly all these people we interviewed in Leonid Shower are all wishing for a bigger house, a new car or a new girlfriend. So these two films are in a way about the two characters in Deconstruction Workers, with their everyday problems. At the same time, the world is falling apart around them. They know it, they see it, but don't react. And this is what I feel my film is all about. The human capacity of ignoring the world around us and the problems in it. That goes for me, my friends and further on.

Lately the film has been given another twist. The global financial crises has hit hard all around the world. Except in really rich countries, and Norway is being one of them. We're loaded in oil-money. It's not a question about how much money we have to borrow, it's a question about how much money we have to spend. The stock market has lost half its value, but the papers are filled with articles on what to do during the Easter holiday. So we just go on as nothing really happened. If you see a film from the Middle-east, you have some background information. A short film about Latinos in LA? Yeah, even I have an idea. But what is Norway's problem? I can only think of one: we're really good at making up problems and ignoring the ones who's already there.