LA-based director and writer Kristoffer Borgli returns to NOWNESS with an uproarious new short, Eer, starring Alia Shawkat and Alex Warren. Following hot on the heels of his 2020 releases—Softcore, which premiered on NOWNESS and won a Vimeo Staff Picks: Best of the Year award, and Cult Member Hears Music For The First Time, an instant classic—Eer is full of the wry comedy, sardonic reasoning, and deadpan delivery that audiences have come to relish in Borgli's work. 

NOWNESS reached out to the director to learn more about the man behind (and in front of) the camera:

Thanks for sharing Eer with NOWNESS. You’ve really managed to capture the cultural zeitgeist of LA. Can you talk us through the film's themes of fake news and paranoia?
This past year has made it feel like reality started following dream logic and I just tried to capture that ephemeral feeling as I was living it.

Living in LA without health insurance must be very difficult. What measures are you taking to stay healthy and out of harm’s way?
It’s kind of an effective system; being so scared of the cost of health care that you’re forced to just stay healthy.

Right, but you’re struggling with what looks like a very infected ear. Can you explain what happened to it?
Is it cool if we don’t talk about the ear?

Sure. Can we talk more about the filmmaking process?
Yeah. Actually what’s funny is that I had my health insurance through the Directors Guild of America and their rule is that you need at least three shooting days per year as a director to receive their benefits. The pandemic stopped most productions from happening, but they still didn’t make an exception, forcing people to take big risks in order to stay safe, ironically. So this film was a three-day shoot. I had to self-generate a project in hopes of getting my benefits back, but when I contacted them they said, “your stupid short doesn’t count.”

That’s sad, so was it all for nothing?
Well, we made a short film, whatever that’s worth. And it was a lot of fun and we stayed healthy.

....Except for the ear.
It’s not THAT bad, okay? You get used to it. It’s fine. I don’t even think about it anymore.