Céline Roustan
Tatheer is going away for a week, but not to your typical camp for teenagers. Instead, she’s attending a Police bootcamp – a program specifically designed for girls from a social housing estate in Copenhagen. In his short documentary, Into the Blue, director Ömer Sami takes us to the woods to spend the week with Tatheer, and the other girls, offering us the opportunity to discover this unusual initiative through the eyes of a 12-year-old girl, as she navigates her place within the group.
“I saw potential for creating a unique microcosm of Danish society”
It’s no surprise that when Sami discovered this Police bootcamp, which is usually off-limits to the press, he was immediately inspired, “I saw potential for creating a unique microcosm of Danish society, and a lens through which to examine universal teenage social dynamics”, he shared with us. Aiming to capture the interwoven nuances in that situation, Sami wanted to show how these girls, hailing from so-called “ghetto” areas, interact with the police and how the camp’s instructors shape their understanding.
Tatheer, the main participant, serves as our entry point to the story, with Sami allowing us to experience the film through her perspective. The observational style immerses us in her journey, but there is an added authenticity from the fact that the film was not only shot only over the week of the bootcamp, but the crew were not made aware of any of the upcoming activities, just like the participants. Going in blind helped Sami and his team experience the camp on the same terms as the girls, but while this lack of foresight could have made filming challenging, Roxana Reiss’ cinematography is nonetheless exceptional. Transporting us to those woods, alongside the girls, the photography perfectly captures their energy – at times chaotic and frantic, and at other moments, more relaxed and playful.
“I knew that through her journey we could experience the bootcamp and its dynamics in a way that is both intimate and insightful” – Sami discussing presenting the bootcamp experience from Tatheer’s perspective.
Beyond capturing the novelty of the camp experience, Tatheer also forms the emotional backbone of the film’s narrative. As we watch her transform during her time there – from being shy and quiet to finding her own voice – the way she learns to navigate the different activities, and the social dynamic of the group, is brought to the screen through an intimate and sensitive lens, which makes this coming-of-age story feel refreshingly different from the more conventional approaches we are used to. Watching her evolve and overcome the challenges throughout the 28-minute runtime keeps the film constantly engaging, which was paramount given its relatively long duration. In the edit, Laura Skiöld Østerud finds just the right pace for the short, condensing the seven-day program into the film, while also adjusting the rhythm to match Tatheer’s personal experience.
Into The Blue premiered at the 2023 edition of Hot Docs and went on to be selected at Telluride and then DOK Leipzig as part of its festival run. Sami is now working on a feature-length documentary about “a legendary school teacher, renowned as ‘The Indiana Jones of Scotland’, who was in fact from London”.