Hammarkullen

“Hammarkullen” was shot on location in the Gothenburg suburb of Hammarkullen, but coul be the story of any suburb in Europe. In this fresco, known actors and actress perform with immigrants, professionals and amateurs. We meet such characters as the Bosnian family who are the neighbors of Jovan the Serb; the angry and solitary invalid Ernst; love-hungry Kristina, who has traded a genuine life for the equivalent of The Shopping Channel; the sloppy yet rule-fixated building maintenance man Allan; the three philosophizing drunks on the park bench; the balloon man who is on helium; the paranoid druggie; neo-Nazi Steve, his mom and pals; Svante, who is obsessed by his poodles and Fellini films; restauranteur Giuseppe and his family, whose eatery is smashed to bits by the Russian mafia; the Somali who refuses to accept an under-the-table job and takes matters into his own hands; Swede Lars-Erik who falls in love with Muslim Fatima; totally burned-out, utterly neurotic social worker Anita; the two homesick Finnish women Arja and Tuula; Frank, the revolutionary who has christened his son Joseph after Stalin: the immigrant gang Hammer-boys; and many, many others. Screenwriter Peter Birro: “It is a song about the suburb in every language of the world, a song about the wild whims of the heart about tears and longing, about dreams, revolt, and war, about forbidden love that bursts any limits. It thunders under the surface, it can all explode!”

[aka Hammarkullen, or see you in Kaliningrad]