Norway massacre survivor says Netflix film 22 July is inaccurate

Isak Bakli Aglen and Jonas Strand Gravli in a scene from 22 July. Photo / Netflix

Emma Martinovic remembers Anders Breivik vividly.

She saw him from a distance, up to her neck in water, swimming for her life. Blood was pouring from a bullet wound in her arm.

She was swimming away from the tiny island of Utoya on July 22, 2011, as the demented gunman dressed in a police uniform unloaded a semi-automatic rifle on terrified victims.

"I looked down at my left arm. There was blood pouring from it," she said.

"I tried to shut it out, focus on swimming. Behind us we could still hear shooting, the screams, the laughter of the b**tard as he shot, and his shout to us: 'You won't get away!'"

Emma, 25, survived Norway's worst massacre, but 69 of her friends who had gathered 40km outside Oslo at a youth leadership camp were shot and killed.

In the capital, a further eight people died when Breivik detonated a bomb in front of a government building.

Seven years on from that day, survivors are reliving their horror in graphic detail. A new film, 22 July, is streaming now on Netflix.

British director Paul Greengrass — who previously directed Captain Phillips and Bloody Sunday — worked with victims' groups and Norway's former prime minister Jens Stoltenberg to create the film.

Netflix's 22 July is a docudrama about the 2011 Norway terror attacks. Photo / AP

It's been praised as "devastating but remarkable", but Emma says it misses some very important points.

"This film does not succeed in giving more people knowledge of the terror that happened, but unfortunately it succeeds in contributing to countless misconceptions."

Speaking with news.com.au from Norway where she is now a mother to two young children, the 25-year-old said the film brushes over the "72-minute living hell" she and others experienced that day.

"It can seem like in the movie that everything was over in 10 minutes and that police came quickly to Utoya," she said.

"The film also does not explain how long the shooting was going on, and a 72-minute living hell is almost eliminated as a little 10 minutes of panic."

She said the movie fails to mention "a lot of things that are missing".

"Like, how about the shooting at Skolestua," she said, referring to "the school house" where 47 campers hid and where Breivik tried without success to gain entry.

"How about the people who started to swim and were rescued by the civilian people? Or how about when Breivik called the police to surrender himself and so on?"

In 22 July, Breivik surrenders after police storm the island and demand he drop his weapon and lie on the ground.

Emma said she understands the difficulties in trying to create a film based on devastating events.

"I understand that it's hard to make a movie that takes 'care' of everything — how it happened, why, and so on, but there are a lot of scenes that I wondered, 'Why isn't this mentioned here?'"

She hopes the film starts a conversation and is used to educate people who might not know why the events unfolded that day or what the gunman's twisted motives were.

But she won't be showing it to her children.

"I have two kids now and when the times comes I am making sure they are getting the facts straight before they see a movie of the terror and time before and after."

Emma has lashed out at the man responsible for the attacks that day. In a previous interview, she told news.com.au she hopes that "loser" is suffering in prison.

"Shut the f**k up and take your punishment as the coward you are," she said in 2015 after Breivik complained about his conditions.

"You killed so many people and acted God for some hours and now you are complaining that you are having a hard time in jail when you don't even know what it means to have a hard time. Coward. Loser."

She also wrote about the trauma of that day in her blog, describing the moments after Breivik started shooting.

She and three others were on the opposite side of the island. First she hid, then she fled, but not before stumbling upon the body of her friend at the water's edge.

"I dragged the boy's body back to land and when I pulled back his jacket hood I saw it was a friend of mine, and I saw the wound to his head. There was no time to react. I kissed him on the cheek and returned to my rock face," she wrote.

She decided the only way to survive way to swim for her life.

"It was cold, I felt the chill in my bones, but focused on keeping my head above water. Behind me some of the others were starting to panic, so I shouted to them: 'Keep your head above water, get away from land.'"

It wasn't long before Breivik spotted those trying to flee. She kept swimming.

"It looked as if he was aiming at us. One of the other swimmers was shot, I saw the blood stream out, so I started to swim even faster. Then I turned on my back again and saw he was aiming at those who still hadn't started swimming from land yet.

"I saw one of my friends about to leap into the water, but in a second he was shot. Even at a distance I could see and hear the two shots, straight to the head.

"Panic spread like wildfire among those on land. I wanted to be among them, urging them to get away, by land or water."

She escaped, but not without a very close call.

On Twitter, she shared a photograph of her daughter at the memorial to massacre victims.

" I promise I'll teach you and your little brother what 22 July was and is," she wrote. "It is with knowledge we fight hatred. Never again."