I was always a writer first and foremost, but I never found the process easy. When I began studying journalism, I had to shackle myself to the desk just to get anything written. Ambition bites the nails of success, as they say.

Film felt like a clean slate—a refreshingly open medium where anything seemed possible and creativity could take many forms. From prep to shoot to edit, it was also, almost always, a collective process. That meant you couldn’t get stuck inside your own head. It was truly liberating.

These three documentaries were all broadcast on Swedish national television within just over one very busy—and very, very rewarding—year. The first grew out of nearly a decade spent working with people from the Balkans and travelling through the region. It left me with the sense that there were stories there still waiting to be told. I now feel the same about what’s happening in Ukraine, Syria, and the other war-torn hot spots of our time. Death and destruction dominate the headlines, but beneath the tragedy, there are always free spirits who, in some wondrous way, manage to stay creative.



The Balkan wars of the 1990s were defining historical events for me. When I eventually made it there—first as a peace activist, then as a journalist—I realised there was so much more to the story than what had reached me through the news. Despite all the killing and devastation, there was also always an undercurrent of hope and creativity. This film is a tribute to three extraordinary people who kept from going insane in the midst of the mayhem by continuing to do what they loved most.
Karosta is an abandoned Soviet navy base on the Latvian coast. The people who still live here do so because they have nowhere else to go—their passports list their nationality as Alien.
In the middle of a harsh winter, Lotte van den Berg arrives to stage a 24-hour play with a group of street children. Fresh from completing her performing arts studies in the Netherlands, she has no shared language with her troupe, but nonetheless does everything she can to get the show on the road.
This reportage was made oh so long ago. It was before my friend Ali—whom you’ll see in front of the camera—became a recognised TV personality. It was also before democracy came to an end in Russia, so Belarus could still be called “Europe’s last dictatorship”. Other than that, sadly, not much has changed in Belarus—at least not for the better.


For me, this short marked my last serious foray into filmmaking. I experimented a lot on this trip, mixing DV footage with Super 8, and I still really like the resulting look.