Director Statement – Finn E. Bugge

I look through the camera psychologically as we look through our eyes, searching for understanding and fascinated by what I see. When I discover, I am intrigued and stare without judgment or a pre-conceived agenda. When I look through the camera, I am looking at myself.

I have been developing as an artist and filmmaker now for almost twelve years with several years of work experience in the film industry in Norway, England and the United States. Gradually, I have gravitated toward personal cinema, culminating in my latest film, DEAR LINA.

DEAR LINA is a reflection on the experiences of my wife, Lina M. Rincon, during the past five years of our marriage spent in Norway, Colombia and USA. The film deals with Lina's yearning to become a painter, while divided between longing for her friends and family in Colombia and wanting to create a new home. The film also reflects on love, loss of youth, violence under Pablo Escobar and nostalgia, while being grounded in basic daily activities.

My personal essay film strategy meanders between the narrative and non-narrative, using plot, characterization, conflict and place – all storytelling devices – to construct a matrix of fragmented metaphors and multiple layers that are woven together as a cohesive whole. I shoot films as documentaries without staging and then shape these as stories that present themselves in the material that reveals its own symbols and meaning. I am present and experiencing life with people as I film.

I want to make films that embrace the chasm between the ideal and the real - it is within this space that I can produce meaning.

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