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New video: “The Ultimate Independent” by Anywhen

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I have just completed a new video I shot for one of my favorite indie bands of all times, Anywhen, led by the musician Thomas Feiner. David Sylvian loved their third (and last) album, [“The Opiates” (2001)] so much that he decided to rerelease and distribute it -seven years after the first release- for his label Samadhisound. The rerelease included two new songs (on of them the magnificent Yonderhead) and it made this great musician famous abroad. “The Opiates” is still his most popular work, but the first two albums are also very enjoyable even though they sound more like britpop. I decided to have a fun go with The Ultimate Independent, a track from the second album (simply titled “Anywhen”) for which Feiner wrote lyrics I really like: teen and naïve but also full of incorruptible strength and unwillingness to compromise. As actors, I chose two young sisters (Mimi and Agnes Bergquist) and the band’s bassist, Mikael Moiner (Mikael Andersson at the time) that -for this song only- “stole” the role of lead singer from Feiner in the chorus. Peter Hernqvist, Lotta Eldh and Ralf Markenstrand also had some fun with us along the way. This album was released in Sweden in 1996, and in Europe in 1997, so it’s twenty years now! Continue reading →

March 8, 2017 – Watch your tongue: that bitch ain’t dirty.

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Sitting in the row in front of me a handsome man in his forties. Fingers tattooed with black letters, silver rings on each, bracelets and dark earrings, leather wrist band, clear blue eyes under golden lashes, hair shaved at the sides and a long ponytail of blond and curly hair that almost reaches his butt, short boots, black jeans and a gray jacket with a dark shirt underneath. And a clerical collar. His name is Markus, he is a street priest: his assigned parish is the streets, at night, and his mission is to help the underprivileged and the exploited. Especially prostitutes. In Sweden, the Protestant Church often works like this, hands on in the dirt, like Christ with the lepers.
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Who’s Afraid of Sweden?

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Sweden has recently been in the news after Donald Trump referred to as fact a Fox News report based on the statements of a certain Nils Bildt, a Swedish mythomaniac who passed off as news the usual anti-immigration and anti-Islam propaganda spread by the “Sverigedemokraterna” (Swedish Democrats) party, a nationalist-inspired political faction founded by some neo-Nazi groups.
The Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs decided to reply by publishing a significant and exhaustive press release in English, “Facts about migration and crime in Sweden,” which demolishes some of the most widespread false opinions/news currently circulating, based on facts and statistics extracted through official channels, primarily Police Force data.
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