7th Heaven

On the Norwegian island of Hidra, an extraordinary bird of paradise exists. It is the 75-year-old painter/writer Lars Kristian, who brightens up the small community with his colourful appearance and unconventional behaviour. His spirit – that of the twenty-five-and-a-half-year-old girl Tatjana – is captive in a deteriorating yet tawny body, which is painted with vivid colours and clothed in Spice Girls outfits. Steffan Strandberg filmed the artist, who is highly esteemed in art circles, during his everyday life on the island. In the tiny community, he seems to have found his own place: he is asked to collaborate on a jubilee mass – provided that he will cover his navel –, he has a discussion with a taxi driver about abstract art, and in the youth centre young painters copy his work. The images of life on Hidra are interlaced with music video-like shots in Kristian’s studio and sporadic photos of the painter in his youth. And there are cinematic references to the heart operation recently performed on the artist, whose work is also included in the pope’s private collection. Strandberg not only made a portrait of an autonomous, self-assured and at the same time vulnerable and depressed artist, but also of a middle-class community in which he, perhaps contrary to expectations, is cautiously accepted as he is. 'You're only something if you're capable of being yourself'.