May 31, 2015

Kung Fury is king!/2

As it is Mother’s Day in Sweden today, let’s just make one thing clear: there is a very important mother crucial for making this dream come true. I’ll get back to that later.
So, I don’t think anyone is surprised really. That the trailer who set off the kick starter campaign which made it possible to make a short that premiered in Cannes last week and on Swedish National Television SVT and released on the web this week has gone viral and is nothing but an incredible success.
It was Christmas Day 2013 when 28-year old Umeå animator and filmmaker David Sandberg launched his trailer on Youtube simultaneously with the Kickstarter crowd funding campaign. The goal was set on 200 000 $ to make a 30 minute film; a free release for the web, but when the one month campaign closed the amount was more than 600 000 $!

David had an idea about a playful martial arts police action comedy breathing the eighties. The plot is the Kung Fu cop Kung Fury who’s friend is killed by the most dangerous Kung Fu crook ever; Adolf Hitler aka Kung Fürher. To take revenge Kung Fury is traveling back in time, but those time machines aren’t perfectly reliable and he ends up among dinosaurs, Vikings, Nazis and mutants. Yeah, the plot is as crazy as the 1,5 years that followed!

David, who looks a lot like a young Johnny Depp, is starring as Kung Fury, and friends from the young film scene in Umeå (mostly) fills in as the characters Kung Fury meets on his voyage. The plot is set in Miami, but the 30 minute film is shot in front of a green screen and most of the locations and environments created in computerized post production, an incredibly time consuming work, made by David.

I have followed the project since a lot of the people involved are friends of my children, the cinematographer Martin Gärdemalm practically grew up in my house since he and Trouble 2 spent all of their school years from kinder garten through the film program in high school together. Plenty of films previous to the grown up professional carrier are shot running around on my front yard with Trouble & Trouble’s 2000 Christmas present, the JVC video camera that lasted through snow storms, sand pits and jumping in the lake, incredible gear!

Therefore, it is such a treat looking at the photos from the Cannes festival, handsome young men in tuxedos and bow ties! And I watched the SVT broadcast sipping a glas of white, knowing that the most important opening was taking place simultaneously here in Umeå, where it all started, among crew, friends and supporters. And directly after the premiere in Umeå on Thursday, these guys flew to New York for a screening the short at Rooftop Films! 

Kung Fury was of course also released in cyber space, and did it go viral (6 000 000 viewings yesterday!) and did it make it all the way to the top of the IMDb! The international movie ranking list goes from 1-10. Kung Fury has reached 8,5, in company with Amelie from Montmartre (8,4) and Star Wars (8,7), to name a few! This is crazy! Huffington Post, Variety, The Verge, as well as media in France, Brazil, Russia, Australia, China, the list just goes on…

Trailer, music video (did I mention the video where David Hasselhoff performs the lead track True Survivor…), and then the 30 minute short. What’s next? Well, a full length might very well be in the makings.

So, how is all this possible. A great idea, talent, hard work, persistence, friends/colleagues, communication skills, and, a mother. 

Because of Mother’s Day, the Umeå local news paper Västerbottens Kuriren yesterday chose to draw attention to mothers behind successful young people from the area. One of them was Kristina Bergwall Sandberg. She is David Sandberg’s mother as well as project manager for Kung Fury. She is also the one who has supported David’s personal life economically and practically during the last few years. Her son simply moved in with her here in Umeå to be able to fulfill his dream, and she was on board. She admits it wasn’t always easy, but what she wanted and absolutely worth while. 

For me, there is one personal draw back from this world success from Umeå. The cinematographer Martin Gärdemalm was supposed to shot some footage for me last week. The magic pre summer light is here, the virgin greenery that changes from one day to the other, and I needed to capture it for a film I am producing. I am not sure that happened. And now he is off to New York. And I am watching the days and evenings pass knowing they are not on my B-roll. Damned Kung Fury!




May 24, 2015

Is there someone else living here too?/part 4 - The End

So, pretty much four months. From when I discovered the water leak to it was all taken care of. Most winter and the entire spring.
Some weeks ago Bengt returned to check if the construction fan blowing hot air in under my kitchen floor, transporting the humid air from there to my fire place, had done it’s job. It had! He found that all the wood, as far as he and his instruments could reach was dry, and I was finally safe! I can’t even put in words how happy I was to hear that. I couldn’t quite take it in.
Now, the reason for the leak was the outflow from the dish washer which was clogged up. It was placed in the back of a cabinet next to the dish washer and I didn’t even know it was there. And I felt really uncomfortable putting the floor and the shelfs in the cabinet back, knowing that wicked thing was back there possibly sabotaging my life again. I started to get really paranoid about this.
So I talked to my plumber. Leif, a good man. We came up with the solution drilling a hole in to the bathroom behind the kitchen cabinet and simply put the dish washer outflow there instead. I pictured it to be an ugly solution ruining the bathroom, esthete as I am, but after this water damage winter I was willing to compromise, I don’t ever want to go through this again.
Leif though, told me he could fix a chrome pipe that would go with the other pipes, and the outflow itself he would put on the sewer going from the sink down in the floor. Again, I pictured something less attractive than my choice would be, but what the heck, as long as it was safe.
That’s when I came to think about it! The sink! The favorite sink which I replaced with a different one when I had a water damage in my upstairs bathroom ten years ago! I knew I wanted to put it in the downstairs one, because the one in there was just very ordinary. It was on Leif’s and my to do list for some years but it just never got done. And the poor fragile thing has been sitting in my would shed among a lot of junk for ten years and I had given up on the plan to get it into the house again.
In my before-life, with a family, I always had plans for the house. Big plans, dreams even, needing money and family consensus. And smaller plans, things I could often take care of myself as I was a strong crafty person with skills my father had taught me well. I saw possibilities for improving most everywhere, I was always aiming for them and had a never ending to do list which I enjoyed. Switching sinks I couldn’t have done myself, but I wasn’t as handicapped as I am now, had more energy and would have made it happen. 
In my after-life I have accepted that neither big or small dreams will happen. I am fully occupied taking care of big or small catastrophes trying to maintain the house as is.
But planning the dish washer outflow solution with Leif I remembered the sink…and the little dream…what if…maybe… Yes, why not?! We weren’t dead sure the wall could carry the long buried dream but I was willing to give it a try.
Tuesday afternoon Bengt was scheduled to come back and finish up his work, and before that the outflow thing needed to be done. Which of course was delayed and happened the same morning. The chimney sweeper accidentally was here as well. And then I had this meeting with my bank in between. Sometimes I feel like my life is a live broadcast with cues having to match perfectly into each other. Click, click, click! A live broadcast life is not for people who don’t do well under pressure and I can’t recommend it.
Anyway, tuesday evening, Bengt had filled the cleaned out and now dry departments under my kitchen floor with new saw dust as insolation and put the floor back. The night mare winter 2015 water damage was dead and gone. Goodbye, and I won’t miss you. No, not a bit. It’s one more thing I have survived.
And in the downstairs bathroom there is the forgotten and dream abandoned oval sink as the crown on the new chrome sewer hiding the dish washer outflow, I am saying you can’t even see it if you are not bending down sticking you head in there! You are opening the door giving the nice sense of something slightly different, but you won’t be able to tell what. I will be the only one knowing what makes you feel good is a shiny sewer under an oval sink, perfectly matching the big round mirror and the little square cabinet on the wall. Just as I pictured it ten years ago.
Now, I won’t give you some positive crap about the water damage hell had to come to fulfill my long gone dream of the sink switch. But standing in my downstairs bathroom experiences the subtile joy of different shapes making a harmony I can come to some reconciliation with this long and horrid winter story.

May 17, 2015

The loss of a tree

I was lying in my bed hearing the chain saw do it’s work. Waiting for it. And there it was. The thud. When the birch fell. I could feel it in my body. My heart sank.

- I would need to cut down that birch, I can’t get around it with my equipment.
It was Sören, ringing on my door bell. Still early morning and Josephine was here to help me to the bathroom. Sören is my leaseholder, taking care of a part of the fields on my property, some of them right next to my place. 
For the last 20 years or so those fields next to me have been lying fallow (is that the right expression?) becoming beautiful meadows which I enjoy a lot. This year though, Sören is going to sow grain on those fields. And I like it! When I grew up I loved the barley changing to yellow in the fall, hearing the grain in them rattle in the wind. And the idea of the fields actually being cultivated again feels good. My grand parents would have appreciated that. And it makes my place more alive. However, this comes with Sören having to use more equipment than he normally does. And being more frequent. 
At the northwest corner of my house is an old birch, guarding the back of it. It stands at the corner of the grove between me and my neighbor, the tallest tree, the pole finishing the grove, defining it, looking out over the fields to the west. I love that birch. The early summer greenery backlit from the sun when it’s about to set in the northwest. My friend listening to my evening balcony summer concerts.
There is a thing with me and trees. And I know I am not alone when it comes to this, that’s a comfort. These last few years I have been forced to cut down some of those on my yard. The mountain ashes in row my grand father planted next to the baker’s cottage protecting the front yard from the wind, are falling down from age. I just’ can’t take all of them out at the same time, only one per year. And I need to prepare myself rigorously. Imagining my little kingdom without it. Touching the emptiness. Letting my body sense it. And then let it happen. Standing there watching it. Being present. Being there in the life changing moment. Over dramatic? That’s not how it feels.
I do wish I wasn’t so damned sensitive. I so envy people who aren’t affected by whatever brings me out of balance. Those people who kind of just shrugs everything off. More like dogs. A shrug, and it’s gone. Or, not even a shrug. Just a yep. Moving on. God how I wish I was built that way. But no. Grandpa’s mountain ashes, the big bird cherry tree. The gorgeous maple me and Trouble & Trouble’s dad planted when the boys were babies, which caught a decease and died on me. They are all leaving empty spaces in me and in my kingdom. Scares.
This morning I woke up having no clue that 30 minutes later my birch would be executed. The thud. That sound. Me not even out of bed, listening to it. I had half an hour to prepare. Me, who needs half a year.
It’s not Sören’s fault. He is just doing what needs to be done to take care of my fields. And of course he doesn’t know I am a HSP and he should have started talking to me about this years ago. He is a good person.
I am trying to find the right words for what it feels like standing on the balcony looking out on… nothing. Nothing there. Just an… area. Like a hole in the universe. Stretching into me. I am lying on my couch, the balcony door open in the calm and sunny evening. Birds singing. And I can feel through the walls of my northwest corner which I am facing, that we are unprotected. The house and I. We are vulnerable.
The dying trees has to go. And when something dies, in the best cases something is also born. But this corner pole birch was brutally killed on a Saturday morning while I was still in bed. It, and I, wasn’t ready for this. And I can’t let a new tree grow there because it won’t work for Sören. I can’t put a stone there to mark the corner. Now, it will really be a challenge coming up with a different perspective. Making a shift in perceiving these grounds. But I have to. And I will. For now though, just let me grieve a while.

May 10, 2015

The Nordstrom way

As a storytelling film producer my dream assignment in Umeå has been telling the story of the entrepreneur and developer Krister Olsson. In Seattle, the dream is putting on film the Nordstrom story. Writing this I am struck with the insight that I am actually  in this moment realizing the Umeå dream. It took me many many years to convince Krister Olsson it would be a wonderful gift to his children and grandchildren to tell his remarkable story, but I actually did it.
The Nordstrom story is also in a way a Swedish story, and that’s one of the reasons why I feel so drawn putting it together. I am reminded about that dream this week when the three Nordstrom brothers at helm, Pete, Erik and Blake, announced they all will be co-presidents of the national retail company based in Seattle.
Pete, Erik and Blake are the fourth generation Nordstrom and their American family tree started with John W Nordstrom, born as Johan Nordström in Alvik, Luleå  (four hours north of Umeå) 1871. He emigrated to America at age 16, mining and logging his way through the country to the Washington west coast. It was hard labour, and it turned out Alaska and the gold rush wasn’t an easy ticket either. John W Nordstrom was persistent though, and after two years in Klondyke he returned to Seattle with 13000 $.
A friend from Alaska, Carl Wallin owned a shoe repair store in Seattle, and in 1901, the two of them opened a downtown shoe store, Wallin & Nordstrom, that’s where the gold money were invested. Well invested too, since it was the start for Nordstrom Incorporated, today a luxury retail empire with 304 stores in 38 states and two in Canada.
What started out as a shoe store developed to stores featuring brand clothing and accessories (Swedes, think NK Stockholm), but even today the Nordstrom shoe department is the part of the store working as a magnet on it’s loyal customers. John W Nordstrom’s approach to business was to provide exceptional service, selection, quality and value. To me, the shoe department is the heart of the Nordstrom store, and I would be surprised if you anywhere in the world can find shoe sales persons more devoted than those in a Nordstrom store.
A Nordstrom store isn’t for anyone though. As quality and selection equals expensive, I find walking through the Nordstrom downtown store more like an exhibit. Beauty to lay my eyes on. But than there is the Half Year Sales. Nordstrom distinguishes themselves with not going cheap every other week, no, only twice a year. And for those occasions people go on pilgrimage, waiting in lines for hours before the doors open in the morning.
When I first came to Seattle in 1993, I actually tried to get in contact with the Nordstrom family, as I found the story so fascinating, wanting to tell it to a Swedish audience, Public Service journalist as I was back then. A friend had a way in, but they responded they never went on camera. That, they had in common with Krister Olsson in Umeå, preferring to stay out of the lime light.
Maybe it’s the Swedish heritage, I am pondering, learning this week about the fourth generation co-leading the company together. It’s very unusual three persons making consensus decisions on that level, but it might be in their genes. John W Nordstrom’s sons Elmer, Everett and Lloyd worked closely together too, as well as the third generation, including Bruce, father of Pete, Erik (notice the Swedish spelling) and Blake. And if there is one word symbolizing Swedes and Sweden, it is consensus.
Back in 1993 I remember there were 54 Nordstrom stores in the U.S. Today 304. Maybe the forth generation isn’t as shy as the generation before. And what do I know, they might already have captured their story on film for the future? But if not… As I told Krister Olsson 11 years ago: you have a story to tell, and I want to do it for you.
For me, a Seattle visit includes allowing myself to purchase a pair of shoes at Nordstrom. Oh, that anticipation approaching the shoe department. Slowly making my way among Prada, Calvin Klein and Stewart Weitzman, being waited on by attentive sales persons who will not rest until I happily walk away with a treasure or two. Or maybe simply have them shipped to my temporary Seattle home. Exceptional service, the heritage of John W Nordstrom.

May 3, 2015

Fucking up acceptance

I felt like flying! I had a new body! There was a world out there and I could be a part of it!
My pain and immobility have escalated during spring. Every weekend (I am measuring in weekends because they are so terribly long and uninterrupted) has been tougher to get through than the one before. I don’t have the release and high after the treatments anymore. I feel a little bit better for some hours, but the pain has such a tight grip on me now that it’s not possible for the body to let go of the muscle cramps.
My pelvis is a mess. Extremely unstable. Every day I have needles and shootings hitting me. Standing, sitting, lying down. Sometimes where I expect them to come, sometimes somewhere else. At times I am attacked at the left and right at the same time. And my brain can’t handle that. It’s too much information. If you are prepared for an attack on your left, that’s what you need to protect, being extremely aware of what’s going on there. In that mode, also being attacked on your right creates chaos and panic. You have nowhere to take shelter. It’s a war. Your body is at war with itself. It’s a stand-off and my intellect and willpower has no say, fear, distress and panic are the winners. Week after week, day after day, minute by minute, it’s just surviving. That’s where I have been for a long time now.
Thursday, Christoffer was treating me, and it was a while since he last saw me. Looking at my treatment history he was concerned. And wondered how my psoas muscles were doing. I could tell him they probably were doing really bad. And I was right. They were hyper tensed. If your psoas are that tensed, adjusting the pelvis and sacrum area doesn’t really help, psoas is a powerful muscle and will win the battle.
So, Christoffer worked the psoas for a good while. Then the piriformis, the abductor a s o before he adjusted what needed to be attended to. It felt really good. It absolutely felt like the right thing to do. And it was!
I was flying out of there! A new body! A new world! I saw the green buds on the bird-cherry tree outside the practice. I chatted with Josephine driving me. Energy flooded into my body. There was light! I sang with her 2,5 year old daughter, picking up groceries was fun, and I noticed people around me. Back at the house Trouble 1 and his friends were up on my roof having the time of their life trying to rescue my chimney from those dreadful jackdaws building a nest. Josephine’s daughter, let’s call her Dancy, ran between my house and her grandpa’s (my next door neighbor) followed by her little puppy, and me and Josephine walking. I could walk! There was life inside and outside me, it was like I could almost see the swirling energy. I was let out of my black pain hell prison and there was a world waiting for me outside!
In the evening I rested on my couch. I watched three episodes of favorite TV series while knitting. I felt good. I felt really good. I had the best evening in months.
And a slight hope started to sprout within me. What if… What if Christoffer can help me? What if Christoffer is the one who can really help me?
I don’t know how many times in my back pain career that thought has popped up in me. Maybe he? Maybe she? Maybe here? Maybe there? Maybe this kind of treatment? Maybe this exercise? Chiropractors, naprapaths, osteopaths, naturopaths, physiotherapists, acupuncture, counseling. Maybe this is the answer? Because there has to be an answer. I just haven’t found it yet.
I went to bed and had a good night’s sleep. Didn’t wake up from pain. Felt okay when morning arrived. Started my in bed routine waking my body up. My extremely tiny exercises for mobility and stabilizing. I turned my head carefully to the left. And my left side acted up. In less than an hour I was acute. In less than an hour I went from feeling fine and hopeful about the day and even for the future (!) to acute and in despair. For the first time in many months I cried from my situation. I turned my head slightly to the left and my future was ruined.
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to turn. I have come to the point where I have accepted my life as it is. Acceptance is the only way when you have tried everything with no change. Acceptance is the step to take for contentment with the life you have. In my case lying on my couch all my awake hours, working a little bit from there, going for my treatments picking up groceries Monday and Thursday, and, in my better periods attending the choir rehearsals Wednesday evenings, half lying in my special chair singing. That’s my life, and it could be worse, that I know from experience. So, I am basically grateful.
Therefore, to let me experience that light and weightlessness I did the day before, that’s just cruel. It happens like once in two years. I am let out and I get to know that inside the prison of pain is a functioning body stuck! It is trapped, but it’s there and it’s possible! It would be possible for me to have a (different) life experiencing feelings like joy and freedom and strength and independence and… I don’t know, I don’t even remember what a life not ruled by pain and fear would be. 
A long time ago Trouble 2 watched a taped TV-program I was a part of singing, I was in my twenties. Mom, he said, you look like a happy girl! That happy girl is encapsulated in a concrete block of pain and fear. My sons have never met her.
I am crying because I don’t know how to get through this. And because it is so sad. It is so terribly sad. It is such a waist of a human life. And I would be better off without those tiny windows of light and hope teasing me for a moment every other year. I would be better of not knowing, staying in my acceptance.