A Swedish charity's heartfelt film

Shot in black and white, this short film-cum-music video-cum-commercial from New Land director Marcus Ibanez, is to promote Swedish children's heart charity,Hjartebarnsfonden, and was created by Swedish agency Abby Priest.

Told without dialogue, the film, called Heartbeats, instead uses arresting imagery, beautiful choreography and Amason's cover of The Knife's Heartbeats - along with a sample of an actual heartbeat - to tell the story of a child's, and his parents', struggle against the condition.

"My niece was born in 2018 with a congenital heart defect and I saw how it affected my brother's family," says Ibanez. "I wanted to tell a story about how it can affect the child, the parents and the relationships between one another. The cover of Heartbeats by Amason was the perfect partner to that story. The process of writing was challenging because of budget and time. But, in that framework, it gave me a lot of creativity. I broke down the story to the fundamentals; it’s about the parents. Nothing else. I just needed great actors and a great dancer to capture the emotion that is so vital to this story. The DoP Erik Henriksson refined the whole idea and created an elevated reality that really worked with the story [and] Abby Priest was amazing and trusted us with their brilliant idea of making a cover of Heartbeats with heartbeats from a child with congenital heart defects."