The tone that pervades the SVT documentary "The boys, the director and the truth" is already set in the first scene. The reporter Negra Efendić is standing in the street with a number of boxes she has just picked up and calls the director Staffan Hildebrand who is in his new home in Cambodia. It is the remainder of his former life in Sweden that is in the coffers, we learn.
"What do you hope this will answer?" she asks Hildebrand, looking skeptical.
The question is confusing – shouldn't it be the investigative reporter hoping to get an answer to something? Not the person being reviewed? Already here, a strange relationship between journalist and interviewee can be sensed.
As is well known, the director fled the country after his abuse of boys was revealed in the book "G som i gärningsman" and in an Expressen interview in 2021. At the beginning of the year, SvD's podcast about "Staffan Hildebrand's new life" also appeared. It is fascinating that a so-called canceled person allows himself to be interviewed about his abuse once again. Why, one might wonder?
Perhaps for the same reason that young guys flocked to Hildebrand's Södervåning during the years he made youth films. The director offered confirmation and a possible place in the spotlight through participation in a film. Now Negra Efendić offers something similar when she travels to the director's home in Cambodia with her SVT team.
Hildebrand broke through on a wide front with the cheesy but charming musical film "G - som i gemänskap" in 1983. I remember that even then there was talk about the director having a sexual interest in boys - a classic "open secret". The rumor undeniably gave certain scenes an aftertaste, for example when the pop group "Barn" runs around among small children on a playground singing "children, love only children".
The suffering caused by Hildebrand's abuse is also depicted with all desirable clarity. Mikael, who met the director when he was 13 and was sexually abused, comes forward and talks about years of mental problems and suicide attempts. Hildebrand regrets when he is confronted with Mikael's perspective, but at the same time does not seem to understand that he committed a crime - they had a relationship, right?
KI uses the same ostrich technique as during the Macchiarini scandal, the culture of silence is intact
It is when Efendić approaches the question of the other suspected victims that the documentary capsizes. For example, the question of the boys that Hildebrand met on his work trips in Asia - including the child who was brought to Sweden and had to live at the director's house for a few months. Now a fight begins between Hildebrand and Efendić, which involves him denying that wrongdoing has been committed, and she teaches him homework and threatens to cancel if he does not tell the truth. Hildebrand backs down, asks for more tea and changes his version.
For some reason, everything is documented in front of the camera with both in the picture. The lecture becomes a recurring, almost parodic, feature throughout the documentary.
I wish Efendić had spent more time on the truly unpleasant reveal. That she put more effort into confronting the Swedish enablers who for decades sought power and money over Hildebrand. For example, the Karolinska Institute, which financed the director's mission to travel around and document the global AIDS epidemic for many years. In the documentary, Hildebrand reveals that he used the assignment to buy sex from young, poor men. "I can't promise that there wasn't a minor, but I don't think so."
But KI uses the same ostrich technique as during the Macchiarini scandal, the culture of silence is intact.
I don't know why Efendić's abuse review was cut like this, focusing on her own relationship with Hildebrand. But the effect is that the strange strict mother and disobedient son dynamic takes over the story. In the end, I feel sorry for the perpetrator, which is the last thing I want.
