In This Isn’t Sweden, Aina Clotet and Marcel Borràs are Mariana and Sam, the hard-working parents of two young children. They moved to a neighborhood on the outskirts of Barcelona to raise their children surrounded by nature and away from the hustle and bustle. Her flawless and perfect Swedish neighbor with her flawless and perfect children is the ideal role model in which Mariana sees herself. But a serious event in the neighborhood will upend their beliefs as the couple continues to be overwhelmed by the realities of parenthood.
This is the starting point of This is not Sweden (all eight episodes are available on RTVE Play; TV3 broadcasts one episode every Monday). The core lies in an educational therapy to which they invited Aina Clotet and Marcel Borràs, also a couple in real life, parents of two children and residents of the same neighborhood with steep streets and wild boars, as their characters in the series. At these meetings, they met the series’ future co-producer, Sergi Cameron, and heard parenting advice from a therapist, Elisenda Pascual. These therapies are replicated in the series with real parents and Elisenda herself plays a fictional version of herself.
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Because although it is fiction, This is not Sweden is grounded in reality. “The series is born from the desire to laugh and humor and to take a caustic look at the demands and demands to which the creative team, Valentina Viso and Daniel González, with whom I share the creation, and Mar Coll, are committed.” [con quien Aina Clotet comparte la dirección creativa de la serie]. We wanted to find out how this lawsuit can make you lose,” summarizes Aina Clotet in an interview that took place last week at the Swedish Embassy in Madrid. “We are in a very lonely moment when you feel lost and these therapies were about looking for a tribe. We were very different people, but we were all looking for guarantees, something that would help us protect our children,” continues the actress and creator.
Actress and creator Aina Clotet, in an image provided by the producer. David Ruano (3Cat)
The first chapter reproduces one of these meetings in which neighborhood parents share their doubts with a therapist specializing in parenting. The remaining episodes begin with other moments of conversation involving real mothers and fathers. Clotet explains that although this lecture is fictionalized to make certain themes and specific phrases visible, its participants are not professional actors, so it is portrayed as real as possible. Before recording, they held what they called an “anecdotal market” so that everyone could tell their own experiences to others without cameras, allowing another person to take them as their own and vary some details. This realism was also carried over to the school’s parents’ meeting, which appears in the series and is attended by parents from the real center where Clotet’s children live. “I wanted this truth to come out. “The mix of actors and non-actors really made it feel like a neighborhood,” explains the creator.
For Aina Clotet, “This is not Sweden” is a combination of comedy and drama and, at its core, a series about fear. “Fear is the other side of control. If you control a lot, it’s because the fear is high. And Mariana is a woman in control. When this takes control, you get off track. “The series is also about failure,” Clotet continues. The protagonists begin with a role reversal: after years in which she was the main one responsible for raising the children and he was the one who worked outside, they now swap roles, which doesn’t go as well as she expects. Because as they prove again and again in the series, theory is one thing and practice is another.
Aina Clotet and Marcel Borràs, in “This is not Sweden”.
“We can all feel connected to the characters in failure, in that distance between what you want and desire and what you are allowed to do, between expectations and reality,” says Clotet. “Society pushes us, we want to achieve more and better, on social media I have to be the best version of myself in all areas of life, and that is pretty unsustainable.” When it comes to parenthood, one of the most brutal challenges in a person’s life If you are already looking for perfection, you have the race of your life ahead of you. This is something very cross-generational and very social, we are in a very demanding time,” reflects Clotet.
RTVE, 3Cat and SVT (Sweden’s public television) were involved in the production of This is not Sweden, as were NDR (Germany) and YLE (Finland). It is the first Spanish series to be awarded the international Green Film seal, which certifies sustainable filming. And even before the premiere, it won the Prix Europa as the best game series of 2023, competing with productions from 27 countries. For Aina Clotet, this shows that the look and humor of the series, in which Spanish, Catalan, English and Swedish are spoken, transcend boundaries and address universal themes. During the preparation process, they received notes and comments from the various co-producers: “It was very interesting because you see what comes straight away and what might not be understood so much.” But in general they were very respectful of what we wanted to do . We always took it positively, they provide an outside view into a time when you sometimes lose track,” says Clotet, remembering the series’ work process.
The girl Violeta Sanvisens and one of the twin babies who play Max together with Aina Clotet and Marcel Borràs in “This is not Sweden”.
“Motherhood changes you 100%. “It rewrites you,” says the actress about her experience as a mother and the creative rebirth in her life that comes with it. When she had her first daughter seven years ago, she made her first short film as a director, “Tiger.” “Since I studied Audiovisual Communication, I have taken on the creative part hand in hand, I have always written, I have developed a series that stopped in the pre-production phase… But now I have the space to create and the desire and the courage found a perspective to contribute,” says the actress. Clotet made headlines five years ago when she publicly denounced that, although she would be one of the protagonists of the series Perfect Life by Leticia Dolera, she was not hired because she was pregnant. Do you think “This is not Sweden” is in some way a way to balance this situation? “I don’t know, that was a long time ago. In fact, I started creating there and then worked a lot as an actress. I don’t think one has anything to do with the other. I had already discussed the topic of motherhood before. But I found the space to devote myself to writing and then work as an actress again,” she reviews.
Now, as a creator, she is reaping the rewards of a process she describes as “very rewarding and hard.” “They are complicated journeys that require resilience because as a creator there are moments of great uncertainty in this process. For me it was a lifelong learning experience. I was accompanied in everything, but I was the element that was there at all stages of the series and that gave me the feeling of control, of a child that you want to take care of,” she concludes.
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