“What we do is not art, it is definitely storytelling”:  An interview with producer Thomas Hellum on NRK’s Minutt for minutt television series

C. Claire Thomson

doi:10.14591/aniki.v4n2.344

C. Claire Thomson UCL, School of European Languages, Culture & Society, Department of Scandinavian Studies, London WC1E 6BT

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14591/aniki.v4n2.344

Keywords: Slow TV, Minutt for minutt, Norwegian television, NRK, Long-duration television

Abstract

“Slow TV” has emerged as the label for a series of long-duration programmes showcasing Norway’s landscape and traditions, conceived in 2009 as an experiment for NRK, the national public service broadcaster. In this interview, producer Thomas Hellum explains the concept, principles and working methods behind Minutt for minutt. Ultimately, he insists, the extreme duration of many of the programmes is a function of the principles and culture of public service broadcasting in Norway. The slowness of Slow TV has little in common with the slowness of Slow Cinema. Minutt for minutt is not about art, says Hellum; it is about storytelling.

Author Biography

C. Claire Thomson, UCL, School of European Languages, Culture & Society, Department of Scandinavian Studies, London WC1E 6BT

Senior Lecturer in Scandinavian Film at UCL. Author of Thomas Vinterberg's Festen (University of Washington Press, 2013) and Short Films from a Small Nation: Danish Informational Film 1935-1965 (Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming 2017). Editor of the anthology Northern Constellations: New Readings in Nordic Cinema (Norvik Press, 2006). An editor of the journals Scandinavica and Kosmorama.