The Anchorage is an 87-minute narrative feature film released in 2010 and shot in Sweden's Stockholm Archipelago. It describes the life of a woman, Ulla (Ulla Edström), over the course of three fictional days. On its face, it's a film about the landscape that she inhabits, her passage of time on this rugged forest island, and the appearance of an unfamiliar hunter who disturbs her quiet corner of the world.

ARTFORUM—Slow and Steady by Michael Joshua Rowin
"...Films in the style of The Anchorage can easily evaporate into thin air, their focus on the rhythms of quotidian life an excuse for a lack of daring and substance. The Anchorage doesn't simply avoid this trap; its mysteries are uncommonly profound and deeply felt. Its depiction of a woman entrenched in solitude is not just contemplative but unbearably tense. And Winter and Edström don't simply evoke transience and fragility, dread and fortitude; they capture these invisible states through delicate yet haunting images that render them startlingly visible."

ARTFORUM—Here, There, Everywhere by Dennis Lim
"...A film that forces and rewards close attention..."

THE NEW YORK TIMES—It's Actual Life. No, It's Drama. No, It's Real. by Dennis Lim
"...Alert to everyday moments and the subtleties of the natural world, The Anchorage is an immersive depiction of a solitary, self-sufficient life..."

CINEMA SCOPE—Welcoming Underestimation by Adam Nayman
"...Visceral...Hardscrabble...This is a vanguard destination, yet one never gets the impression that the filmmakers are straining to overturn categories or push beyond boundaries...The Anchorage performs a gentle end-run around our expectations, visually as well as dramatically...Its virtues—chief among them a palpable curiosity about both its onscreen world and the best means of mapping it—are so plain...One of the key films of the year."

SLANT MAGAZINE—The Anchorage by Ricky D'Ambrose
"...An accomplished film whose generous spirit is harbored by an insistent aesthetic austerity...magnificently realized...meaningful, thoughtful...an exquisite debut feature."

N+1—The Neutral by Jonathon Kyle Sturgeon
"...Edström and Winter's The Anchorage takes the form of a diary…one that reveals margin notes and scribbles, the raw materials and rejected bits that lead to its own construction…a spare and unsettling entry that epitomizes the neutral cinema's preoccupation with heterotopia and endangered territory…The home movie quality of The Anchorage, coupled with its near-stable camerawork, congeal to generate a voyeuristic warmth, a tone the slight narrative modulates to great effect. The Anchorage, taut and vulnerable like the woman whose diary entries punctuate the film, resonates beyond its form."

MUBI—Immersion Cinema by Daniel Kasman
"...Marvelous...Exquisite...A retreat of a film yet, in its microcosmic focus and seclusion, an extension to textures, sounds, and feelings of ambiance and setting far beyond the average cinema."

LOS ANGELES FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION AWARDS—The Anchorage by Robert Koehler
"...Important...Crucial...Filmmaking born of humility, the embrace of mortal and natural limits, the handmade..."

MUBI—The 28th Vancouver International Film Festival by Adam Nayman
"...Important...Impressive...Remarkable...Distinguished by an aesthetic and ethical equanimity."

BLOGS & DOCS—The Anchorage by Cristina Álvarez López
"...Stimulating...Provocative...A film replete with beautiful gifts..."

PUNTO DE VISTA INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL OF NAVARRA—The Anchorage by Luce Vigo
"...This film is beautiful. But it is more than beautiful. It is strange, magic..."

TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES—The Cinema In-Between by R. Emmet Sweeney
"...A film loaded with remarkable moments...It requires a re-orientation as a viewer, away from character arcs and towards a multi-planar focus, where the background holds as much interest as the human moving at its center. This can be a difficult transition to make, but the rewards are stunning."

PURPLE—The Anchorage by Jeff Rian
"...I was knocked out...An incredible visual and sonic cinema experience...genius."

BRIGHT LIGHTS FILM JOURNAL—From Airdolls to The Anchorage by Ben Cho
"...Magnificent...Brilliant...Eerily compelling...An elegant cinematic artwork."

THE NEW YORK POST—The Anchorage by V.A. Musetto
"...Mesmerizing...The Anchorage is a fully realized ode to the power of silence and solitude and one woman's harmony with nature."

ART IN AMERICA—Indiscrete Images by Jordan Hruska
"...Intense...Ethereal...A deep meditation."

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL—The Anchorage by Steve Dollar
"...Unique, unusual, mysterious...It's the first film from the directors, whose deceptively static approach has much to reveal for attentive viewers."

THE SEATTLE POST GLOBE—The Anchorage by Bill White
"...Breathtaking...gripping...by the end, we are so enraptured by the slightest detail..."

THE L MAGAZINE—The Anchorage, Art Cinema, and the Consolations of the Rural Lifestyle by Mark Asch
"...Eloquent...rigorous...gentle profundity..."

DELO (Slovenia)—In Search of New Film Narrative by Dennis Valic
"…The Anchorage expands the definition of narrative film…It is as much story as audible landscape…Conceptual, but also possessed of a strong lyrical charge…imaginative…personal…meditative…."

ALLMOVIE—The Anchorage by Nathan Southern
"The Anchorage, a stark, bold, almost abusively demanding experimental drama by CalArts grad C.W. Winter and acclaimed Swedish photographer Anders Edström, defies all established rules of traditional cinema and carves out its own unique and inimitable onscreen vision...The co-directors craft a remarkable viewing experience virtually unlike any other…This is a minimalist work, but that categorization doesn't begin to hint at how challenging the material is…The emotions that materialize in The Anchorage…make this film a thoroughly singular beast. What makes its suspense particularly effective is the fact that it surpasses standard cinematic tautness in its philosophical depth. In this regard, the film is an unmitigated success…The Anchorage sits about as far away from conventional Hollywood filmmaking as anything in memory. As a viewer, embracing such extremism means abandoning all presuppositions about the fundamentals of narrative…Those able to do so will discover that the movie rewards them immeasurably…It was not simply one of the most beautiful and profound films of 2010 but is one of the all-time great minimalist dramas."

NOBODY MAGAZINE (Tokyo)—The Anchorage by Masaya Nakahara
"...This film is a masterpiece."

THE GUARDIAN—Rebirth of the Radical at the Viennale by Ronald Bergen
"...Every action is significant."

REVERSE SHOT—The Anchorage by Jeff Reichert
"…the filmmakers are clearly playing with notions of things that are and are not worthy of being in movies, while still ensuring we feel empathy, tension, and release…it has a sadness to it that’s almost unbearable. This a terrific movie…"

ANOTHER MAGAZINE—The Anchorage by Hannah Lock
"...A dreamlike film...The Anchorage envelops its viewers in the eerie beauty of the Swedish landscape and holds its grip..."

THE HERALD—The Anchorage Looks at Rhythms of Life in a Beautiful Meditation by Robert Horton
"…Meditative…Powerful…Beautiful to look at and listen to…this all feels exactly right..."

ARE THE HILLS GOING TO MARCH OFF?—The Anchorage by Carson Lund
"…A lovely, quietly unsettling work…wondrously textured…Intimate…Powerful…Stunning...Purposely restrained and unspectacular…[It's an] authentic, immersive world these promising young filmmakers capture."

NOBODY MAGAZINE (Tokyo)—The Anchorage by Hiroshi Matsui
"…This film plays the role of a griot…Here, the explicitness of the simple actions enters our eyes and ears as a magical discovery…Essentially, stories—that is, anxiety or conflict—are brought alive on screen only when they gain concreteness. And this is what Edström and Winter (not unlike Mikio Naruse) so clearly show us…"

HARVARD FILM ARCHIVE—The Anchorage by Haden Guest
"A remarkable expression of the post-documentary moment that seems to be defining a new major stage in contemporary world cinema…The film skillfully defies any neo-realist appearances by using its extreme restraint of story, sound, and dialogue not to create a contemplative minimalism but rather to sustain a steadily increasing yet ambiguous tension. The Anchorage unfolds a series of pointed yet irresolvable appeals to specific genre expectations—of the horror film, the melodrama, the Bergmanian art film—investing objects and the film's few characters with a mysterious aura."

CINEMA SCOPE—Agrarian Utopias/Dystopias by Robert Koehler
"...Explicitly inspired by the field film tradition, even as the results nestle in the twin embraces of ancient myth and Jean Epstein. The film drifts away from 'documentary' toward perhaps what might be labelled a 'nonfiction feature,' but even then, the label fails to stick, because the fiction appears to be nonfictional. This deliberately contradictory nature is a fundamental part of the film's essence. If any finding is made at all, it is that the categories are finally quite pointless."

62° Film Festival Locarno
Golden Leopard | Best Film
Cineasti del presente Città di Locarno

Los Angeles Film Critics Association
Douglas E. Edwards Independent/Experimental Film/Video Award

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One of the Year's 10 Best Films:
VARIETY, Robert Koehler
CINEMA SCOPE, Adam Nayman
FILM COMMENT, Haden Guest
SENSES OF CINEMA, Thure Munkholm
INDIEWIRE, Jay Kuehner

Best First Film of the Year:
THE NEW YORK TIMES, Dennis Lim

Directed/Edited/Produced by: C.W. Winter & Anders Edström
Director of Photography: Anders Edström
Written by: C.W. Winter

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87 Minutes / Color / 35mm (from Super 16)
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 / Dolby SR

The Anchorage / Ankarplatsen / L'Amarrage / El ancladero / Die Verankerung / L'Ancoraggio / 投錨地 / 앵커리지 / 锚位

Filmed 2006 in the Stockholm Archipelago, Sweden
U.S.A. theatrical release 2010
© General Asst. U.S.A./Sweden

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CAST AND CREW

Ulla: Ulla Edström
Marcus: Marcus Harrling
Elin: Elin Hamrén
The hunter: Bengt Ohlsson

1st Assistant Camera: Jay Keitel
2nd Assistant Camera: Marcus Harrling
Production Sound Mixer: Jeff Mooridian
Key Grip: Lucas Quigley
Additional Sound Recording: C.W. Winter
Catering: Tayoko Shiojiri
Associate Producer: Ulla Edström, Yoshiko Shiojiri
Production Assistant: Elin Hamrén, Lisa Blom

Title Design: Lucas Quigley
Still Photography: Anders Edström
Prints: Fotokem
Color Timer: Josh Rushton
Video Dailies: Magic Film & Video Works
Negative Conforming: Magic Film & Video Works
Digital Effects: Identity Studios, Inc.
Digital Effects Producer: David Scott Van Woert
Digital Effects Supervisor: Leo H. Vezzali
Digital Compositor: Evan Ghigliotty
Additional Effects editing: Meredith Young
Titles: Eric Fitzgerald at Hollywood Title
Subtitles: Titra Glendale
Duplication: Lightning Media Hollywood

Sound Supervisor: Clancy Troutman
Re-recording Mixer: David West
Sound Design: Kento Oiwa
Post-production Sound Mixer: Justin Bates
Additional Sound Editing: Scott Westley
Re-recording Engineer: John Rotondi
Dolby Sound Consultant: Thom "Coach" Ehle
Post-production Sound Services: Digital Dreams Studios
Re-recording Facility: Digital Dreams Studios
Foley: Mark Wheaton, Albert Ortega

Elsa: Elsa
Caller: Lena Landgren
Cashier: Birgitta Kjellgren
Shopper: Piki Johansson
Restaurant patrons: Christina Sundgren, Nicolas Bini, Esmerelda Sundgren Bini, Päive Maja

2nd Unit Production Coordinator: Marcus Harrling
2nd Unit Clapper: Mai Edström
2nd Unit Production Sound Mixer: Nils Edström, Yoshiko Shiojiri

Camera: Arriflex SR II
Editing: Final Cut Pro
Stock: Fuji film—Fujifilm Sverige AB
Processing: Nordisk Film Post Production Stockholm, Fotokem
Equipment: Kamera-Ten AB, Ljud & Bildmedia AB

PICTUREHOUSE CENTRAL: London, United Kingdom; March 27, 2017

DUKE OF YORK'S PICTUREHOUSE: Brighton, United Kingdom; March 20, 2017

INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ARTS (ICA): London, United Kingdom; June 7, 2015

UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD / THE PHOENIX PICTUREHOUSE: Oxford, United Kingdom; February 9, 2015

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO: San Diego, California; February 29, 2012

FICCMÉXICO: Mexico City, Mexico; February 4–13, 2011

THE CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART: Cleveland, Ohio; January 28 and 30, 2011

UCLA JAMES BRIDGES THEATER: Los Angeles, California; January 27, 2011

PACIFIC CINEMATHEQUE: Vancouver, British Columbia; December 17–20, 2010

HARVARD FILM ARCHIVE: Cambridge, Massachusetts; December 6, 2010

GRINNELL THEATER: Grinnell, Iowa; November 19–21, 2010

PITTSBURGH FILMMAKERS / PITTSBURGH CENTER FOR THE ARTS: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; November 12–14, 2010

WEXNER CENTER FOR THE ARTS: Columbus, Ohio; November 5, 2010

SENDAI MEDIATHEQUE: Sendai, Japan; October 23, 2010

NORTHWEST FILM FORUM: Seattle, Washington; October 22–28, 2010

IBRAHIM THEATER AT INTERNATIONAL HOUSE: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; October 6, 2010

UNION THEATER: Milwaukee, Wisconsin; October 1–3, 2010

REYKJAVÍK IFF: Reykjavík, Iceland; September 23–October 3, 2010

ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES: New York, New York; September 17–23, 2010

KINO OTOK ISOLA CINEMA: Izola & Ljubljana, Slovenia; September 8–13, 2010

CINÉDÉCOUVERTES / CINEMATEK—THE ROYAL BELGIAN FILM ARCHIVE: Brussels, Belgium; July 1–14, 2010

BAKUON FF: Tokyo, Japan; May 2–June 2, 2010

JEONJU IFF: Jeonju, South Korea; April 29–May 7, 2010

CPH:PIX: Copenhagen, Denmark; April 15–25 2010

BUENOS AIRES FICI: Buenos Aires, Argentina; April 7–18, 2010

CENTRE DE CULTURA CONTEMPORÀNIA DE BARCELONA: Barcelona, Spain; March 31, 2010

CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF THE ARTS: Valencia, California; March 19, 2010

TOKYO METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Tokyo, Japan; February 19–28, 2010

PUNTO DE VISTA DFF: Pamplona, Spain; February 5–13, 2010

GÖTEBORG IFF: Göteborg, Sweden; January 29–February 8, 2010

LA FÉMIS / POINTLIGNEPLAN: Paris, France; January 27, 2010

UNKNOWN PLEASURES FF: Berlin, Germany; January 1–19, 2010

AFI FEST: Los Angeles, California; October 30–November 7, 2009

VIENNALE: Vienna, Austria; October 22–November 4, 2009

VALDIVIA IFF: Valdivia, Chile; October 15–20, 2009

VANCOUVER IFF: Vancouver, Canada; October 1–16, 2009

FILM FESTIVAL LOCARNO: Locarno, Switzerland; August 5–15, 2009

The Anchorage is the first feature film from C.W. Winter & Anders Edström. Their previous film, One Plus One 2 (2003), was made in collaboration with guitarist Derek Bailey. Their film/video work has shown at such venues as the Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston), Centre national de la photographie (Paris), Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Fotomuseum Winterthur, NRW-Forum (Düsseldorf), the Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus), the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, and the National Museum of Modern Art (Kyoto). They are currently in production on their second feature film, Occident's March.

C.W. Winter was born in Newport Beach, California. He received his MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. His writing appears in such publications as Cinema Scope, Moving Image Source, Purple, and Too Much. He is currently a DPhil candidate in Fine Art at The Ruskin School of Art as a Clarendon Scholar at Wolfson College, University of Oxford. He lives in Oxford.

Anders Edström was born in Frösö, Sweden. For nearly three decades, his work has been widely published and has exhibited at such venues as the Musée d'art moderne (Paris), the Centre Pompidou, and the MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt. He lives in Stockholm.

BOOKS
Anders Edström: Hanezawa Garden (Mack Books)
Anders Edström: Waiting some birds a bus a woman / Spidernets places a crew (steidlMACK)
Anders Edström: Safari (Nieves)
Jeff Rian & Anders Edström: The Buckshot Lexicon (Purple Books)

SAMPLE BIBLIOGRAPHY
C.W. Winter: "Hanezawa Garden" from Anders Edström's Hanezawa Garden (Mack Books)
C.W. Winter: "Time Overlaps Itself", Moving Image Source
C.W. Winter: "Like Gold and Faceted", Cinema Scope
C.W. Winter: "Exterior: Topography", Too Much

info@theanchoragefilm.com