My father was born in Kristianstad, Sweden. His work as a diplomat took him and Mother all over the globe. He had met her in London in 1937. In 1938, he worked in Canada. There, I was born in the same year, on July 13. When I was one, my family left Canada. I grew up in Denmark, Sweden, Belgium and Poland.

I didn't return to Canada until I was 62 years old, going there for a film festival. It felt odd to be back. I spent most of the time in my hotel room. Outside my window, the skyscrapers formed a skyline. I could hear police sirens on the street below; it was like in the films.

I had a stack of paper and a ballpoint pen. Due to the distance, Stockholm seemed like a crystal-clear place, easy to grasp. Almost in a trance, I wrote a text about that city. At dawn, I drew up my storyboard. At breakfast, I applied for financing, having the Swedish television and Film Institute people staying at the same hotel.

I couldn't wait to go home. Once at home, I started to film with my Bolex camera, which is almost 50 years old. I followed my storyboard meticulously, and I cranked myself through Stockholm until the camera failed; the speed becoming more and more erratic.

I tried to work out many ambivalent feelings: the missing father... the magic city... the treacherous ties to a place... inevitable death... love of life... and all the rest... all the things that are so difficult to talk about.

The film became a tragicomic story of how a city can occupy a person's soul, and this person's attempt to free himself from his obsessions.

That's why my film is called "The Stockholm Syndrome".

Carl Johan De Geer