Anyway the momentum is slowly building for our new film DAGGERS DRAWN.

We have started getting some initial casting suggestions and we are initiating work with the artist, Misha Papic, to create a few conceptual images for the main “look” of the movie.

Still the structure of the financing and production is my main concern at the moment. The recent government EIS initiative has prompted us to start up a Launch Marketing fund (Caravan LM 1) for which we are seeking subscriptions to a total of £ 2 Million.

Since we posted info about our funding strategy on our website under the invest tag, we were approached by the FT Investment Adviser with an offer to advertise our fund release.

We have let them have plenty of background info and we will be running an ad in their Film Investment Feature section in the Aug 9 issue. Look forward to seeing what that can bring. I have actually had the thought fly through my mind: “How does one advertise for film money?” “Can one put an ad in the FT?” - I suppose I should have found out ages ago, but better late than never.

At the time of publication I will myself be in Locarno, meeting with European producers and staff from Eurimage.

I will also attend a Co-production forum arranged by the European Producers’ Club and meet with a delegation of Central Asian producers at the Festival.

The more efforts we make into setting this new film project in motion, the more it becomes evident that a new financial structure is needed for the combined effort of production and launch.

I am specifically looking for a German co-producer with an interest in action-horror as I definitely want to secure the biggest EU territory. Let’s see what happens in Locarno.

Then it’s time for Sweden again as August means end of the Swedish general holiday shut-down. There is a serious stake in the Swedish side of this production and we are looking for co-operation with the Swedish Film Institute and also one of the three local studio+fund constellations.

Our long time collaborator, Swedish Academy Award winning Cinematographer Marten Nilsson has read the script and is keen to be on board. We hope for this to be possible depending on how the co-production structure works out.

In the meantime an associate producer in LA is working hard on getting US funding into the picture.

All things taken into account my mental note to myself is to work on establishing an organic  structure  whereby funding can flow into our pending projects.

Fingers crossed.

Ps I have just outlined a remake slate for our Swedish films and excluded Summertime as I felt that it was a cute coming of age comedy but maybe too locally specific (Malmo, Sweden). Then as I checked this morning’s harvest of comments on the clips uploaded on Youtube a guy was repeatedly marveling at “how good this film is”... hm...!

We have started getting some initial casting suggestions and we are initiating work with the artist, Misha Papic, to create a few conceptual images for the main “look” of the movie.

Still the structure of the financing and production is my main concern at the moment. The recent government EIS initiative has prompted us to start up a Launch Marketing fund (Caravan LM 1) for which we are seeking subscriptions to a total of £ 2 Million.

Since we posted info about our funding strategy on our website under the invest tag, we were approached by the FT Investment Adviser with an offer to advertise our fund release.

We have let them have plenty of background info and we will be running an ad in their Film Investment Feature section in the Aug 9 issue. Look forward to seeing what that can bring. I have actually had the thought fly through my mind: “How does one advertise for film money?” “Can one put an ad in the FT?” - I suppose I should have found out ages ago, but better late than never.

At the time of publication I will myself be in Locarno, meeting with European producers and staff from Eurimage.

I will also attend a Co-production forum arranged by the European Producers’ Club and meet with a delegation of Central Asian producers at the Festival.

The more efforts we make into setting this new film project in motion, the more it becomes evident that a new financial structure is needed for the combined effort of production and launch.

I am specifically looking for a German co-producer with an interest in action-horror as I definitely want to secure the biggest EU territory. Let’s see what happens in Locarno.

Then it’s time for Sweden again as August means end of the Swedish general holiday shut-down. There is a serious stake in the Swedish side of this production and we are looking for co-operation with the Swedish Film Institute and also one of the three local studio+fund constellations.

Our long time collaborator, Swedish Academy Award winning Cinematographer Marten Nilsson has read the script and is keen to be on board. We hope for this to be possible depending on how the co-production structure works out.

In the meantime an associate producer in LA is working hard on getting US funding into the picture.

All things taken into account my mental note to myself is to work on establishing an organic structure whereby funding can flow into our pending projects.

Fingers crossed.

Ps I have just outlined a remake slate for our Swedish films and excluded Summertime as I felt that it was a cute coming of age comedy but maybe too locally specific (Malmo, Sweden). Then as I checked this morning’s harvest of comments on the clips uploaded on Youtube a guy was repeatedly marveling at “how good this film is”... hm...!

This is all very well and quite understandable. BUT. When looking at the methods proposed to achieve this result I find myself shaking my head rather than nodding. Far too many stereotypically statistical boxes are ticked. Real criteria that can make a film successful are not mentioned.

Most of these run of the mill investment opportunities focus on “secure” cards like known names in the cast and film crews that have been previously involved in some prestigious production.

Everybody knows that big names can be associated with huge losses on unsuccessful films - consequently that part of the argument is shrouded in mystery to me.

Behind the camera talent that has achieved a high ranking status can be rather jaded and expensive while lacking the “mean-and-leanness” that a fresh hungry crew is capable of offering.

One of my main points is that to make a film into a commercial success TWO important things are required:

A good film.
Marketing.

OUR STRATEGIC PROPOSITION:

We include a marketing budget in the financing scheme.

Our package allows a production budget of £ 800K which is backed up by a
£ 1.2 Million for marketing. This money to be used aggressively to ensure the film’s box-office success. Once this is achieved the long term income potential of the film is secured. The film can then be sold successfully world wide on all platforms continuing to generate revenue for years to come.

Does this sound crazy to anyone?

Read more on our website:
www.caravanfilm.co.uk
choose the tab for "invest"

This is interesting because it reminds me of an important aspect of why I made the film.
What the Swedes don’t realize is that they DO indeed stick together AGAINST the intrusion of any of all these foreign elements into the attractive levels of society.

So what do you do if you are a well meaning politician in a society where someone has been trained as a cartographer but has to work as a taxi driver because he has an accent hammered out in one of the mixed culture suburbs where hardly ever a Swedish teacher sets his/her foot,  (This was an actual person that I encountered but didn’t make it into the final edit) not to mention the problem of having a typical Hispanic name.

The well meaning politician will maybe form a committee that will focus on demanding equality for our taxi driver and others in his position. BUT what he will neglect to do is to study what opposition he has in demanding the change.

I made this documentary so that people could see for themselves what level of confusion, misunderstanding and endemic tendencies of aggressive response are entangled in this subject. If you don’t learn to observe this, everybody will continue running around in the dark accusing and attacking each other. Who will benefit from that?

Nuff said
LF

Firstly let me extend my apologies to all who thought Sweden to be some kind of paradise on earth and now see their dream shattered. Nobody needs to be preached to that racism is a delusion. But has it escaped anyone that there is a (primitive) part of our brain that stubbornly insists on a distinct quality advantage reserved for one’s own ethnic group? I would bet on a clear no on that one.

A Swedish joke proves at least some Swedes know they are tangled up in this just like anybody else.

A man from Dalarna (a historically nationalistic province of Sweden) was visiting Stockholm. Inspired to buy a souvenir he perused a selection of globes in a shop but couldn’t find what he was looking for.  He turned to the clerk and said - Don’t you have one with only Dalarna on it?

Unfortunately the Swedes, like all other western nations that receive refugees, have bought their own PR, to the extent that they believe, that all arriving at their shores will magically be transformed to the advanced level they pretend to have achieved. The ironical twist here is that Sweden has its fair share of pedophiles, murderers, wife-batterers,  alcoholics, drug addicts not to mention straight forward thieves and all kinds of criminals just like all other countries of the affluent West. Many are actually clinically depressed and quite a few psychologists infer this stems from social repression of the urge to express aggression...

If this makes you angry, sad, elated or confused I suggest you take a look at some of the unbelievable (sometimes shocking, but always entertaining) convictions expressed in another docu of mine: “I BELIEVE” also on TheCaravanTube. Then (if not before) take a butcher’s at what you really believe yourself. Who knows, maybe the penny will drop.

With the best wishes,

LF

Hi all,

The total video view count on TheCaravanTube has reached 100 000. To celebrate this we have decided to give some “behind the scenes” commentary to some of the uploaded videos. Feel free to comment and post questions and I will answer as best I can.

One third of the view numbers mentioned above, result from views of RACIST SWEDEN? (Swedish title: RASIST JAVISST?) This is a film I shot for SVT (Swedish National Broadcasting Corp) during 1992 (broadcast April 1993). This was 16 years ago. Judging by the current response, the conflict has not been resolved.

I will start with a general walk-through of the film shoot. In future posts I will go into more detail about each episode.

The truth about myself is that I arrived in Sweden at the age of 7, starting at that point to learn Swedish as my 4^th language. I don’t look like the Scandinavian stereotype at all. In fact I look like a typical “svartskalle” (“blackhead” in literal translation). This gave me some trouble in approaching some of the more xenophobic individuals that I would have liked to include in the film.

On the Swedish National Day, June 6, 1992, I actually managed to corner a member of the illegal organisation VAM (literal translation of White Aryan Resistance). He was on leave from prison to take part in the rally. He divulged how he disagreed with his father, an old-fashioned worker who respected immigrants that pulled their own weight.  Those days are gone, he said. It’s only trash that come here these days. Then he broke off the conversation refusing to be interviewed on camera.

A few weeks later the local authorities in Stockholm erected big tents on a common aimed to absorb some of the expected unrest in connection with the European Cup being played there. One of the contracted bands, Ultima Thule (“the extreme north” in Latin) had a “nationalistic” following. “My Skinheads” were there; two guys and a girl that I made contact with at the National Day demo. They now had the main role representing people anti-immigrant feelings. They were loving the show.

The band had agreed to let my camera-man be on stage and as, the now famous cinematographer Pjotr Mokrosinski, (with several feature credits) was filming from the stage, I stood in a corner avoiding to appear in frame. Suddenly a handful of big sinister looking guys jumped onto the platform attacking him with kicks and blows. He managed to put the camera down on the ground, fending off the blows with his arms. One of the event managers grabbed the camera and ran out with it to save it from being smashed. (The footage from this incident is edited into the film.)

Police was all around but nobody caught the culprits who disappeared into the crowd as quickly as they had turned up.

The most hairy incident occurred on the night of the big demonstration itself. The night of the 30^th November 1992. I had with me three outstanding cinematographers known for both documentary and feature work. First, Lennart Peters was posed on the roof of the Royal Opera House to get overall coverage. Pjotr Mokrosinsky was with me following and filming the immigrant crowd and Olof Johansson was roaming with “our” group of skins.

Towards midnight we let our various groups go and Olof Johansson came over to my hired Toyota van to reload a new mag. As I let him into the car a situation evolved just a few meters away. Pjotr was already filming how a small group of young skin-heads were surrounded by a huge crowd of anti-fascist demonstrators. Many of them wielding truncheons, baseball bats, steel pipes and ripped up paving stones. Between the two was a bunch of young but savvy ex “Warrior Style” streets fighters now organised in a group called “Non Fighting Generation”.  One of them that knew me called out if I had a car handy. I said yes. “Please take these kids out of here, or they’ll be massacred.” They were having trouble holding back the anti-fascist crowd.

Running at full speed escorted by the NFG group we got the three kids into the van and drove off at full speed. But the manoeuvre had been spotted by the huge angry mob. I was at the wheel seeing them coming, about fifty of them. I stepped on the accelerator and crossed the big Gustav Adolf Sq breaking every traffic rule in the book.

Bang. A stone came in through the rear window covering us all in splintered glass. A couple of big bangs of steel piping smashed big dents into the sides of the vehicle but I was determined not to let anyone get in front of the car and that way stop us. A mob like this had disaster scenario tattooed all over it. They came from both sides and I found I could scare one flank by heading for it by sharply turning in a zig-zag pattern, simultaneously escaping the crowd on the other side. When I turned back the ones trying to follow me had to jump out of the way again. I was high on adrenaline.

 In a last brave attempt a guy jumped up and hung onto the right side mirror. Luckily it tore off under his weight and I careered against the allowed direction down a one-way street in our bashed up Toyota. I saw the mob slowing down in the rear mirror. We wanted to take our skin-head passengers to the central station, but NO they cried. All the “wogs” would be there. We had to take them to a quiet train station on the northeast side of town.

Ironically the angriest of them turned to me as they were getting out.

 -       Is there any chance of getting work-experience with you guys? I’m dying to learn to work with film.

 I wonder what he’s doing now?

 ends

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZWsZyShR_s