Carl Abrahamsson

Movies

Genesis Breyer P-Orridge: Write Your Own Code
Director
As Genesis and I were working on the documentary film "Change Itself” (released in 2016), we agreed that it would be great to also have Genesis reading poetry in the film. One clip was eventually used. "Write Your Own Code" contains all of the material we shot in Oslo, Norway, 2014. These sessions also became the creative ignition for the spoken word album we made together in 2017, and which was released in 2019 by Ideal Recordings: "Loyalty Does Not End With Death." I have left the casual tone of the sessions, including some mishaps, as untouched as possible. Write Your Own Code! – Carl Abrahamsson, 2021
Anton LaVey: Into the Devil's Den
Writer
In 1989, I met Anton LaVey for the first time. At this time in his life, LaVey was seeing only a select few people. For this film, I've met and interviewed some of them, to try and create a composite image of what he was really like, and what he meant to these people. It's a memory lane trip, filled with personal stories, dark humor, great music and never before seen material with the Black Pope himself.
Anton LaVey: Into the Devil's Den
Director
In 1989, I met Anton LaVey for the first time. At this time in his life, LaVey was seeing only a select few people. For this film, I've met and interviewed some of them, to try and create a composite image of what he was really like, and what he meant to these people. It's a memory lane trip, filled with personal stories, dark humor, great music and never before seen material with the Black Pope himself.
Poems Are Living Things
Director
A film about the making of the album "Loyalty Does Not End With Death" by Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and Carl Abrahamsson.
Poems Are Living Things
Self
A film about the making of the album "Loyalty Does Not End With Death" by Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and Carl Abrahamsson.
Cinemagician: Conversations with Kenneth Anger
Director
Iconic American filmmaker Kenneth Anger has inspired generations of creative storytellers since the late 1940s. He is a unique visionary who drifts from pure poetry within his magical filmmaking to sardonic gossip in his bestselling "Hollywood Babylon" books. In-between these extremes we find a person who never tires of exploring his own creativity. In this intimate documentary, Anger lets us in on his fascinating life story, his approaches to filmmaking, and his relationship to British occultist Aleister Crowley.
The Mystery of Life: An Art Apart - Gustaf Broms
Director
Swedish artist Gustaf Broms has, since the early 1990s, developed a symbolic language in order to help him understand his own being.
Change Itself – An Art Apart: Genesis Breyer P-Orridge
Screenplay
To sum up the life and work of British artist Genesis Breyer P-Orridge is close to impossible. Not only because of the wide range of artistic disciplines, but also because of the timespan, since the mid 1960s to the present day, that has been saturated by hundreds of records, thousands of concerts, exhibitions, interviews, videos, spoken word performances, collages, sculptures, philosophy, cultural engineering, occultism and radical transgender concepts. A couple of descriptions are still valid after these 50 years of active creativity and provocation. P-Orridge is a romantic existentialist and a cultural engineer. Everything is both work as such and seed for cultural and behavioural change.
Change Itself – An Art Apart: Genesis Breyer P-Orridge
Director
To sum up the life and work of British artist Genesis Breyer P-Orridge is close to impossible. Not only because of the wide range of artistic disciplines, but also because of the timespan, since the mid 1960s to the present day, that has been saturated by hundreds of records, thousands of concerts, exhibitions, interviews, videos, spoken word performances, collages, sculptures, philosophy, cultural engineering, occultism and radical transgender concepts. A couple of descriptions are still valid after these 50 years of active creativity and provocation. P-Orridge is a romantic existentialist and a cultural engineer. Everything is both work as such and seed for cultural and behavioural change.
Silent Lips
Screenplay
Young Swedish woman Alice travels with her abusive American boyfriend in the Balkans. As their relationship goes from bad to worse, Alice drifts more and more into an emotional void, which leads to violent repercussions.
Silent Lips
Director
Young Swedish woman Alice travels with her abusive American boyfriend in the Balkans. As their relationship goes from bad to worse, Alice drifts more and more into an emotional void, which leads to violent repercussions.
Giving a Baby a Chainsaw: An Art Apart - The Hafler Trio
Director
Documentary about British artist Andrew M. McKenzie.
Once the Toothpaste Is Out of the Tube - An Art Apart: Charles Gatewood
Director
American photographer Charles Gatewood started out in the 1960s as a young man with dreams of showing the world the radical cultural developments that were going on in his country. He met many of the iconic instigators of change and documented them for posterity. As the decades passed, Gatewood drifted more and more into a personal expression of sexual subcultures, both in America and abroad. His powerful photos of pioneers within the tattooing- and piercing scenes helped pave the way for the movement that was to be called "Modern Primitives". It's a classic example of when art, and in this example, specifically photography, merges with its general environment and takes on new forms that are impossible to stop. Or, as the San Francisco based photographer himself describes it: "Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, you can't put it back".
Nothing Can Turn Into a Void: An Art Apart: People Like Us
Director
British artist Vicki Bennett takes you on a roller coaster-ride with her art project People Like Us. In performances, videos, collages and music, her amazing editing techniques and sense of humor leave you flabbergasted and enthusiastic at the same time. People Like Us is like free-zone where appropriation meets alchemy, humor meets social critique and the boundless imagination meets so-called reality.
Ingenting är sant, allting är möjligt – en liten film om Freddie Wadling
Director of Photography
Documentary about the Swedish artist Freddie Wadling
Ingenting är sant, allting är möjligt – en liten film om Freddie Wadling
Writer
Documentary about the Swedish artist Freddie Wadling
Ingenting är sant, allting är möjligt – en liten film om Freddie Wadling
Director
Documentary about the Swedish artist Freddie Wadling
Mementeros
Director
Vanessa Sinclair (US) and Carl Abrahamsson (SE) work with textual cut-ups, which are recorded and set to music. The musical pieces are then assembled in sequence (as an "album"), which is then the basis or groundwork for a film. Their latest film is called "Mementeros", and touches upon the mysteries of the flesh in union and separation. Their performance included the film, plus added levels of improvised music and poetry. "The flesh is an emotion in itself. Our flesh is divided as we move along; dissociated from the humble origins. Blotted out; looking for freedom in friction. This is beyond good and evil, and asexuality is also a sexuality for all we know. Each piece of flesh is a colour, a destiny, an enlargement of the first view – the one we hunt for the rest of our lives; even beyond capacity and function. Sweet life of death – incentive of all incentives. (...)"