The lyrical opening scenes set the tone for this delicately constructed portrait of Gabi: the thirteen-year-old teenager is followed in warm close-ups while digging a hole for her time capsule. In voice-over we hear the protagonist talking to her future self: “I hope you will be brave enough to be yourself no matter what other people think.”
Filmmaker Engeli Broberg found Gabi in Stockholm as an eight-year-old tomboy, almost seven years ago and initially wanted to make a short documentary about the fascinating child. But luckily, she decided she wanted to stay around longer to film Gabi growing into a teenager, and into her own skin.
Broberg obviously developed a very close connection with both Gabi and her family – her English mother and Swedish stepdad (Gabi’s Italian father is not in the picture but very much in Gabi’s inquisitive mind) and her younger half-siblings. The young girl seems to hardly notice the camera and goes about her way doing her things: playing football, hanging out with her best friend Henry, play with Lego cars, contemplating running away, arguing with her dad and philosophising about gender.
Her role models are definitely male – if only her mother would let her, she’d have Ronaldo’s haircut, including the shaved patterns on the side. She worries about maybe one day growing breasts and having her period and hates moving with her family to Dalarna, way up north, where she has a hard time finding new friends.
Broberg gets really close – the camera captures subtle mood changes, a look of disappointment or feeling excluded when none of the boys at her new school want to listen to her football stories. Or confusion, when she’s observing girls her age – which she secretly adores but doesn’t know how to interact with. Or sheer happiness when she finally gets to meet her best friend again.
Gabi is an incredible grown up soul, an absolute joy to watch and listen to and it is a real achievement that Broberg has managed to let her be the person she is. The film doesn’t try to turn Gabi into a saint or a hero – it shows a complete picture of her in all her humanity. Gabi admits to calling other kids names, in an attempt to fit in. She knows how to push her mum’s and stepdad’s buttons – going on about her real father and how she longs to meet him.
Broberg creates an atmosphere of enchantment in her movie: the shots of the landscapes outside are paintings of splendour – colourful sunsets, virgin snow, fresh spring flowers – and indoors she finds the right angles to shoot Gabi from, never looking down on her, but always looking steadily at her from her own height.
You feel like you understand what it is like to be born a gender that you don’t connect with. She’s looking at videos about transgenders and brochures on surgical sex reassignment. “But I am already like a boy in school. I hang out with boys and talk in a deep voice. Are you a boy then?” It seems it is not about being a boy or girl, but all about being Gabi. “When you’re young it is easy, you’re just you. But when you have a choice, you have to think about it.”
The filmmaker lets the viewer grow up with Gabi and teaches us lessons about what it means to be human, without ever shoving any message down our throats. It deals with sensitive subjects in the nonchalant way children do: they just acknowledge what is, maybe ponder on it for a minute, before getting on with being alive. The beauty of the cinematography, the intelligent editing and the sensitive soundtrack all pay tribute to Gabi’s persona, her strength, vulnerability and authenticity.
Broberg stopped filming after Gabi turned 13 so as not to interfere with her most formative years. But it would be great if we could bear witness, some time in the future, to Gabi opening the box containing the letter to her future self. And to discover if indeed she “never stopped playing football” and did stop “worrying about what other people think.” The filmmaker and Gabi have, with this documentary, instilled the hope and expectation that she will grow up to be whatever to be whatever she feels like, whatever gender or sexual orientation that might be.
Sweden/Norway, 2021, 75 mins
Director Engeli Broberg
Screenplay Engeli Broberg
Producer Anna J Ljungmark, Jakob Eklund
Production House of Real
Backers: Swedish Film Institute/Svenska Filminstitutet (SFI), Sundance Film Institute (US), Filmbasen (SE), Film i Dalarne (SE), SVT -Swedish Television (SE), Film i Skåne (SE), NFI – Norwegian Film Institute (NO) and Fritt Ord (NO)
