Post an insanely intense pre-summer

My skin is warm from the sun which finally made it’s summer entrance this weekend. The balcony door is open letting the smell from newly harvested fields in, my land leaseholder Sören came with his green tractor last night making the season mark: pre-summer is over. The wind has fallen and the evening is quite and calm.

This is what I need now. Sun, warmth and peace.

For a month now I have been pushing myself way over what is possibly possible for me. The choir festival needed one week of script writing and meetings to become the success we were aiming for. The festival week was followed by a pre production week for a film shoot the week after. And in the middle of that a family reunion. Gosh. It’s been insanely intense.

I am producing a documentary about thee developer of Umeå. His name is Krister Olsson and he is the Paul Allen of my Swedish hometown. We started shooting in October and now was the summer shoot. During the winter I haven’t been able to be there in person at all times because of my back, but I had pictured me up and running before the summer. There was a plan B, I could do it via Skype as I have had at times during the winter, but as this shoot was mainly interviews plan B wasn’t one I didn’t want to put in action if I could avoid it.

And I didn’t. Although I wasn’t at all up and running the way I pictured and hoped for. Not at all. My back was protesting loudly as the week started and continued all through. But surrounded with good people I managed to do what I needed and wanted.

Audrey is the one helping me out of bed in the mornings and giving me breakfast. On her way back in to Umeå she dropped me off at the noon locations where cameraman Tomas and sound guy Johannes met up. A lot of film crew work is carrying things. Camera, lights, cables, batteries, microphones, computers, reflecting screens, stands, tripods, sand bags, etc, etc, etc. In this case it also involved carrying me.

Not literary but close to. Tomas and Johannes carried my backpack and my bag. And a special chair that worked for me sitting in during the interviews. As well as a cute pillow knitted by my friend Mimmi, perfect to support my lower back while seated. They also gave me their hands helping me up and down from that chair and in and out of the car where I was half lying when changing locations. Do I need to say Tomas and Johannes is my dream team?

Since we started shooting this film biography the weather gods haven’t been good to us. Heavy overcast, rain and fog. When shooting you don’t want bright sunshine, you want a slight overcast giving you a soft and even light. But a too even light (as in heavy clouds, fog or rain) doesn’t give you any nuances and shades, and makes everything look grey and dull. And of course the equipment doesn’t like rain.

So, for this summer shoot not only did I picture myself up and running but Umeå showing off it’s very best summer face. What happened? Well, Audrey and I left my place at the end of the road the first morning in perfect weather conditions arriving in downtown Umeå 15 minutes later, rain poring down. The improvising that followed continued all week as the prognoses were never to trust and our carefully picked and planned interview locations had to be crossed out one after another.

But hey, that’s the conditions for a documentarian, we are not working in a controlled environment! And we had a good week. We had a great week. I was present for the interviews and completely safe handing over the B-roll work to Tomas and Johannes. Do I need to stress they are my dream team?

Landing on my couch Friday afternoon body and soul completely exhausted I was close to crying. I have been working so hard keeping myself and my body together not only for this last week but for this last month. Now it was over. I did it. I made it. With a lot of help from kind hands around me I made it. Now I could let go. I hadn’t been aware of that kind of need. But there is was.

I am happy and very grateful that I could attend at everything marked in my calendar this last month. And I am proud about a well done job achieved. I only wish I didn’t have to suffer the way I do. I wish it wasn’t such a fight for me. I am wishing I was allowed to simply enjoy what I am doing and trust it to be that way. Not to be dreading it.

My mother’s lupins are shining in the evening sun. The honeysuckle under my grandfather’s apple tree is slowly withering, it was gorgeous this year. Yesterday I spent the afternoon lying on my folding sun bed at my neighbors Jenny and Hannes’ engagement garden party, surrounded by happy people in their thirties. Josephine just visited with her horses Daisy and Bella munching the rich white clover from my too tall lawn. I made it through the insanely intense pre-summer, summer has finally arrived here at the end of the road. And I love it.

Persistence X 2 = film

In Seattle there is Paul Allen. In Umeå, Krister Olsson.

As a storyteller and documentarian I have some dream projects. One is telling the story of John W Nordstrom, a Swedish shoemaker who emigrated from Nederluleå starting a shoe store in Seattle 1901. When I first came to Seattle 20 years ago there were 54 Nordstrom stores (which in modern days is an upscale fashion retailer) in the U.S. Today the number is 252 stores. Nordstrom is still widely known for their shoe department and their customer service, the head quarter is still in Seattle and oh how I would love to tell that story!

In Umeå, the dream story is the one about Krister Olsson.

Krister Olsson is the Paul Allen of Umeå. The main developer. The person who pictures the opportunities in a piece of land. Who has the visions, the economical resources and the persistence to follow them through.

They are also the persons who sometimes make politicians and public uncomfortable. The Swedish and American cultures are quite different when it comes to being successful, wealthy and powerful. Those three words are the American Dream in a short story. Sweden, as a basically homogeneous country where we are all descending from farmers with a couple of cows, some acres of land and at best a horse, is in general skeptical towards people who are making noticeable peaks on the national culture codex scale.

Therefore, it is interesting and a bit surprising noticing how the discussions and reactions to Paul Allen,Vulcan and Krister Olsson, Balticgruppen are very similar. Although Seattle is a fairly big American city and Umeå a smaller Swedish one. It seems like there is something about the size of the place and the dimensions of the developers’ acting. When the developer’s footprint gets big it turns intimidating. He (there isn’t a lot of female developers) simply takes up too much space, land wise, economically, and strategically. And this makes people worried.

Krister Olsson and his company Balticgruppen is involved in most every developing project happening in Umeå right now. I am crossing the Umeå River entering Umeå from the south side where my village is located. This fall has been the most beautiful I can remember in my grown up life. The birches and maples have been on fire reflecting in the river. And the flat red brick downtown silhouette has been added on with new buildings rising above creating fresh reflections in the wide and streaming river.

Downstream there is the Art Campus (Konstnärligt campus) and the Art Museum (Bildmuséet), boxes in various sizes out of Russian Lark designed by Danish Henning Larsen. In the city center the Winn Hotel blue and white cross-striped floors emerging from out of the Forsete block, and at the waterfront the Norwegian Snöhetta designed building for cultural arts Väven, busy with getting dressed in the black and white glass exterior inspired by the graphic stem of the Umeå birch, the tree synonymous to the red cedar for Seattle. Balticgruppen is the common denominator for the new Umeå skyline.

In 2004-2007 I made a film-documentation for Balticgruppen, covering a different project. Back then we were talking about documenting Krister Olsson’s life as an entrepreneur on film, and even started on it. Since then he has been busy realizing his visions about Umeå, and so the tale about him hasn’t been neither a priority nor focus. I have never given up the hope of telling his story though, and about every other year I have been making the calls, poking around to make sure the idea wouldn’t die, keeping it alive. Waiting for the timing to be right.

It’s been one of those really nasty November days in Umeå today. Foggy, rainy, windy. About freezing point but feeling like 14°F (-10C). I’ve been sitting on the third floor of Väven wrapped in a big long down coat. The building is still very much in progress and there is no heat inside. Camera man Tomas, sound guy Johannes and me all thought we were dressed and covered for the occasion (after all, we have some routine), but being still and focused on a long interview in a cold humongous building is just…very cold.

I think though, the interviewee was even colder, although the atmosphere was warm. Krister Olsson is known for his persistence. Well, I am too. After nine years of keeping the idea alive, this fall I finally got a yes for telling Krister Olsson’s life on film. I’ve been close a couple of times before but something has always come up. The fact that it is now finally happening has kind of been hard to grasp. Today it became real. And I am so thrilled about it.

And quite proud. And humbled. I have been given a great trust. And I will try my very best to do a good job.

So what about the Nordstrom story? Well, it is yet to be told, at least from the Swedish perspective. And Paul Allen? I wouldn’t say no if I got the question. That’ for sure.