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!
Technically speaking, this video is deliberately “poor”, a zero budget one: it was shot almost entirely with a mobile phone, with natural lights, without any type of device; only for the night footage I (fortunately) preferred to use a professional camera, operated by the great Magnus Bergström, with whom I also did the editing. It was supposed to be some kind of exercise, for me, both for shooting and editing, but the effect was quite the opposite: I am now more convinced than ever that I only want to be a pure director, and nothing else. I am too demanding to be able to settle for something unprofessional, and I do not intend to become a fantastic photographer or editor myself: on the contrary, I prefer to collaborate with professionals that can enrich me with ideas, and their talent, who know for their job well. So here comes my unpretentious divertissement, I hope it will manage to raise a smile!