Mr. Governor

Anders Björck is a true old-school conservative right-wing politician. The glorious years as Speaker of the House, Government official and Secretary of Defence are long gone, he is now reduced to the local periphery as Governor of a provincial university town. 'Mr Governor! is an observational film shot on 16mm black&white reversal film with a 12mm wide-angle lens. Jean Rouch once described the 12mm lens on a 16mm camera as the closest equivalent of the human eye in cinema, and black & white film has an unbeatable ability to communicate very subjective moods and atmospheres whereas colour often simply represents the !documentary' reality. Even though !Mr Governor' has a character-driven narrative it isn't a personal portrait in the classical sense but rather a broader, more universal film about loneliness, aging, democracy and national pride.