Fredrik Gertten: Movies & Box Office

Fredrik Gertten (born 3 April 1956 in Malmö, Sweden) is a Swedish filmmaker, producer and journalist whose career spans over four decades of investigative storytelling. After graduating and beginning his journalistic work in the mid‑1980s, he spent eight years as a foreign reporter covering conflicts and social issues across South Africa, Latin America, Asia and Europe, before founding the production company WG Film in 1994. Since then he has directed and produced a series of critically acclaimed documentaries that examine global patterns of kleptocracy, lobbyism, financialisation and extractivism, most notably Bananas!* (2009), Push (2019) and Bikes vs Cars (2015). His early film Bananas!* sparked a high‑profile legal battle with the multinational fruit company Dole, bringing international attention to the plight of Nicaraguan workers and earning him the Anna Politkovskaya Freedom of Speech Award as well as the Fuf‑award for development work. Building on that momentum, Gertten released Big Boys Gone Bananas! (2011), a meta‑documentary about the lawsuit, which premiered at Sundance and toured major festivals such as Toronto, IDFA and Berlinale.* In recent years Gertten has turned his focus toward systemic social injustices. Breaking Social (2023) investigates worldwide kleptocracy and corruption, featuring voices like Rutger Bregman and Sarah Chayes, and debuted at CPH:DOX. Its thematic “sister films” Push and Bikes vs Cars have each influenced public debate and policy – Push contributed to housing legislation discussions in Denmark, Germany and New Zealand, while Bikes vs Cars sparked a national conversation on urban mobility and earned him the French “Talents du Vélo” award. Gertten’s earlier work also documents his hometown, producing titles such as True Blue (1998) and Walking on Water (2000) that explore Malmö’s cultural and architectural transformations. Beyond film, he authored the travel book Ung man söker världen (1995) and has written columns for Swedish newspapers Arbetet and Kvällsposten. His multifaceted career, marked by a commitment to social justice and environmental sustainability, continues to shape documentary cinema and public discourse worldwide.