Pål Hollender

United States of Afghanistan

Pål Hollender

Pål Hollender, Olle Ljungström

A "dogumentary", made according to Lars von Trier's Dogme rules for documentaries. Completely unprepared Pål Hollender and his friend-with-a-death-wish, Swedish pop star Olle Ljungström, went to Afghanistan, wrecklessly diving into the tension building up in September 2002, the anniversary of 9/11 approaching. The result is a series of visually strong and intimate scenes from Afghanistan. The disturbing ignorance of the two friends from Sweden is as relevant as the meeting with the Afghan people and their culture.

Buy Bye Beauty

Pål Hollender

Pål Hollender, Andris Grinbergs

Buy Bye Beauty is a 2001 documentary film by Swedish director and performance artist Pål Hollender. The film is about the way Latvian sex industry and its being fueled by businessmen and sex tourists from Sweden visiting Riga. The film was shot in Riga in July 2000. The narration of the film is in English, with interviews conducted in Russian and Latvian.

Journal

Pål Hollender

Pål Hollender recounts the experience of being abused by the father of a childhood friend. In abrupt shifts he is alternately the narration’s subject and object, the criminal and the case history, a fictional character and a real-life human being, pathologized and abandoned in a field of anonymous authority.