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Leisure Time - A Summer's Day

An ethnographic comedy showing people at leisure in the setting of the 'sommerhus', a sort of summer residence popular in Denmark. Among the cast: a teenage girl who treads water in an indoor swimming pool, two old sisters bemused by a TV system, some drunken friends indulging in a risky game of darts, a man in underpants hooked on virtual reality and a woman with a nervy Shih Tzu who narrates how they spend their day.

  • Adam Paaske
    Director
    The Art of Shattering Eternity
  • Adam Paaske
    Producer
    The Art of Shattering Eternity
  • Adam Paaske
    Cinematoghrapher
    The Art of Shattering Eternity
  • Adam Paaske
    Editor
    The Art of Shattering Eternity
  • Kaleb Thorning Wine
    Sound designer
  • Siraj Muyingo
    Colourist
  • Frederik Fog Bruun
    Soundtrack
  • Erik Malmqvist Jakobsen
    Soundtrack
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    En dag i sommerhus
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Short
  • Runtime:
    29 minutes 59 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    January 5, 2022
  • Production Budget:
    4,700 EUR
  • Country of Origin:
    Denmark
  • Country of Filming:
    Denmark
  • Language:
    Danish, English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    Yes - Institute of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen
  • CPH:DOX
    Copenhagen
    Denmark
    March 24, 2022
    World Premiere
    Official Selection
  • Visions du Réel
    Nyon
    Switzerland
    April 13, 2022
    International Premiere
    Official Selection
  • Astra Film Festival
    Sibiu
    Romania
    October 10, 2022
    East European Premiere
    Official Selection
  • Odense International Film Festival
    Odense
    Denmark
    August 29, 2022
    Danish & Documentary Competition
  • Reykjavik International Film Festival
    Reykjavik
    Iceland
    September 29, 2022
    Icelandic Premiere
    Official Selection
  • Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam
    Rotterdam
    Netherlands
    October 5, 2022
    Dutch Premiere
    Official Selection
  • Big Sky Documentary Film Festival
    Missoula, Montana
    United States
    February 26, 2023
    North American Premiere
    Official Selection
  • REGARD – Saguenay International Short Film Festival
    Saguenay
    Canada
    March 22, 2023
    Canadian Premiere
    Official Selection
  • Freiburger Film Forum
    Freiburger
    Germany
    May 17, 2023
    German Premiere
    Official Selection
  • Flatpack Festival
    Birmingham
    United Kingdom
    May 16, 2023
    UK Premiere
    Official Selection
  • West Lake International Documentary Festival (IDF)
    Hangzhou
    China
    November 24, 2023
    Asian Premiere
    IDF Competition
Distribution Information
  • 7 Palms Entertainment, LLC
    Distributor
    Country: United States
    Rights: All Rights
Director Biography - Adam Paaske

Adam Paaske (born in 1996) is a filmmaker, film curator and bachelor in anthropology. His first documentary film, ‘The Art of Shattering Eternity’ (2019), is an intimate portrait of the internationally acclaimed Danish novelist, essayist and political commentator Carsten Jensen: this film was part of the official selection at Master of Art Film Festival (2020). The ethnographic comedy ‘Leisure Time - A Summer's Day’ (2022) is Adam Paaske’s second as a director. 'Leisure Time - A Summer's Day' had World Premiere at CPH:DOX, International Premiere at Visions du Réel and was selected at numerous other international festivals around the world.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

This film stems from my ambivalent attitude to leisure time. On the one hand, I view leisure time in relation to the expression “to kill time” - which as the author Carsten Jensen points out, is another way of phrasing the act of precipitating death. In this light, leisure time becomes the opposite of existential intensity: death in dull disguise. On the other hand, I envy those who, unlike myself who need to work almost every day to feel at ease, are able to fully enjoy leisure time; those who like to spend day after day at the swimming pool, solving crossword puzzles or gardening. Throughout the whole process of the making of ‘Leisure Time’, I saw my own ambivalence towards leisure as a breeding ground for creativity, believing as the director Victor Kossakovsky puts it, that “Doubts are crucial for making art”. Of course, the way people spend their leisure time varies culturally, and in this film, I examine the theme of leisure by focusing on several Danes and a single German who either own or rent a ‘sommerhus’ (literally: summer house), a summer residence common in Denmark.

‘Leisure Time’ is a time- and site-specific movie; it unfolds within a summer day and takes place in eight of the approximately 230.000 summer houses that exist in Denmark. What links the summer house dwellers of the film is time and space. With this simple premise the movie can effortlessly jump from one single moment to another, from house to house, ensuring that there are only scenes of intrinsic value. ‘Leisure Time’ is imagined as a piece of ethno-fiction, so for the most of the film, the characters consciously play their own roles as members of the mainly Danish white middle and upper classes in the setting of the ‘sommerhus’. In this sense, many of these summer house dwellers have - through improvisations and creative discussions with me as a director - been agents in shaping their own representation.

Boredom, absurdity and loneliness are three central themes that ‘Leisure Time’ deals with, and through visual stylization and slow pacing I have tried to make the audience feel the passage of time rather than forget it. I have tried to throw a critical, loving and humouristic light on people at leisure, and my hope is that the film will give its audience gain insight into a particular culture, and at the same time raise an existential question in a serio-comic and non-judgmental way: How do we spend the time that we have been given?