Yrsa Roca Fannberg

“Grund, a home for the elderly in Reykjavík, Iceland is a place that I know very well, while making my films (Salóme, 2014) and (The Last Autumn, 2019) I have worked as an auxiliar nurse there. And I still work there, alongside my filmmaking. The film The Ground Beneath Our Feet has been digesting within me for some time and the very starting point was Andy Warhol‘s screen tests and I wanted to make the elderly at Grund my superstars. From the beginning it was clear that I wanted the protagonists in the film to be people that I look after on a daily basis, that there is trust and many of them I have followed to the very end. I find the ethical and philosophical question of how we say goodbye to this life very important, when life starts to wither away, always with it in mind that there is life before death. In my experience most of the residents at Grund are very aware of death, and most of my protagonists are very aware that death is not too far away. Death is one of the most dramatic things that happens in our lives, but at the same time the most natural thing. It happens to all of us. There comes a point in our life when the circle will come to an end, it’s closed. Even though the film focuses on life before the end it was important not to shy away from death, but to portray it as a natural path in life. This is something I do talk about with the residents and one of them said “It’s not that I want to die, but I am prepared for it”, which has taught me quite a lot, how to affront one’s own and others death. In the film I wanted to make visible the beauty and grief of aging; to explore and show the daily rituals, the love, and real emotions, as well as the texture of the skin and their gestures and gazes. To that life can be meaningful in its final passage. A film that shows gratitude and respect to life, even in its final path towards the end.”
Yrsa Roca Fannberg