movie

Vote for Sommartider – the almost true story of Gyllene Tider!

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The Guldbagge Awards is an official and annual Swedish film awards ceremony honoring achievements in the Swedish film industry. Which films and who should be nominated for the Guldbagge Awards in different categories are determined by a nominating committee. It consists of 45 members who nominate three candidates in each category. The Committee members are active in the Swedish film industry and are appointed by their respective organizations or institutions, as determined by the Swedish Film Institute’s board of directors.

This year’s nominees were announced on 17th December and Sommartider, the almost true story of Gyllene Tider received only one nomination, Johan Palm in Best Cinematography category. Congratulations! The movie was a big hit this year, more than 208,000 people went to see it in the cinema, so we think it would have deserved more nominations. We agree with Jan-Olov Andersson at Aftonbladet that Valdemar Wahlbeck, as Per Gessle, should have been nominated for Best Leading Actor. Anyway, we keep our fingers crossed for Johan Palm to win. He and his team did an amazing job!

Sommartider has a second chance though, to win the Guldbagge Audience Award!

Voting for the most popular film of the year is now open. In the first stage – starting today, 18th December – the audience can vote for all Guldbagge-nominated feature films from 2024, a total of 50 titles. On 2nd January, the three films that will advance to the final will be revealed, and voting will continue until 8th January. The winner will be announced at the Guldbagge Gala on 13th January.

Vote HERE!

Everyone can vote for the Guldbagge Audience Award once a day, and those who vote can also compete for great prizes: tickets (including hotel) to the Guldbagge Gala, cinema pass (Biopass) and Guldbagge merch.

Good luck!

 

Clothes and accessories from the Gyllene Tider movie for a good cause

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Producers of Sommartider, the almost true story about Gyllene Tider decided to organize a vintage pop-up and offer the clothes and accessories used in the movie for a good cause.

The pop-up will be set up in the middle of Sturegallerian, Stockholm (Sturegatan 4) on Friday, 6th September and you can go there between 2 and 7 pm.

The items are sold through Nevis Productions for the benefit of Friends Foundation. All proceeds from the sale go to Friends’ work against bullying.

Sommartider tells the fantastic story behind the legendary Swedish band Gyllene Tider, which has become one of the biggest pop sensations of our time. Per is the ambitious outsider at high school in Halmstad who finds a community and friends for life through music with MP, Micke, Anders and Göran.

The film shows the strength of daring to go your own way. Being surrounded by good role models and having the courage to stand up for yourself and others are prerequisites that contribute to children’s resistance to bullying, according to Friends Foundation. The adult world therefore plays an important role in the preventive work against bullying.

You who are reading this play an important role, because there should be more important adults around our children who always act against violations and bullying. Friends Foundation appreciates that the film Sommartider and the production contribute with that kind of message.

Per Gessle and Valdemar Wahlbeck on Swedish Radio

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Per Gessle and Valdemar Wahlbeck were guests on Studio Ett, Swedish Radio on 18th July. You can listen to the interview HERE!

The reporter welcomes the guys and asks them how it was when they met for the very first time and who was more nervous. Per can’t remember, so he turns to Valdemar and asks where they met. Valdemar says it was at Hotel Tylösand. Now Per remembers Valdemar came with his notebook and asked him a lot of questions. Valdemar says he had like 20 questions and thought they could go through them. It went well, the guys say. The reporter says it was a good starting point.

Valdemar is 21 years old. The reporter is curious what he knew about Gyllene Tider when he got involved with the film. Valdemar says that as a Halmstad local, you grow up with Gyllene Tider. His father has been playing a lot of Gyllene Tider at home, the records were either hanging on the wall or in the record box. And then you also sing Sommartider a number of times during summer breaks.

The reporter saw the movie a few weeks ago and she says the applause afterwards was massive. Here she plays music journalist Per Sinding-Larsen’s words, who says Gyllene Tider is part of music history and talks about the probable influences they had, e.g Sven-Ingvars and Owe Thörnqvist. The reporter asks Per what he thinks about it. PG thinks there might be some truth in that, but they didn’t listen very much to Sven-Ingvars or Owe Thörnqvist. For Per, it was rather Povel Ramel who was very influential. Valdemar thinks he was fantastic. Then it was ’60s pop that Per grew up with and when Gyllene Tider started, it was exactly the end of the ’70s. It was just when punk and new wave music started happening. The Ramones, Blondie, Buzzcocks and all that. So they gained some kind of self-confidence that it was OK not to be terribly good. It was different a few years earlier with progressive music, e.g. Emerson, Laker & Palmer and Yes. Everyone could play punk music and it suited Per very well, as he couldn’t play. The reporter is surprised, but PG says he learned along the way. He learned to play acoustic guitar to Leonard Cohen’s Suzanne and such songs on nylon string guitar. Then he changed to electric guitar and learned The Kinks’ riffs.

Valdemar says the movie itself is very much about music and together with Clarence Öfwerman and Christoffer Lundquist they dove themselves deep into Gyllene Tider songs. They geeked out on all the songs and Valdemar geeked out on Per’s voice. There is this genuine tightness and fantastic feeling which is not found in much other music.

The reporter remembers listening to Per’s solo debut album in the ’80s, before Gyllene Tider and she wants to know what Per’s ambitions were back then. Per corrects the reporter and says that his first solo album came out in 1983 and by then they had already made three Gyllene Tider LPs. 1981 was their biggest year. In 1982 came Sommartider and in 1983 Per’s first solo record came out. He made that record because everyone else in the band did the compulsory military service. He had a year off since he didn’t do the service, because he looked terrible in green. Valdemar laughs. Per simply made a singer-songwriter record, a more grown-up album. He was 24 years old, he was an old man already then. Haha. Marie Fredriksson also sang some songs on that album.

According to the reporter it’s funny that Per says he didn’t look good in green. She doesn’t know if Per was just joking, but that part was also fun in the movie. There it felt like Per was a pretty vain guy at that point, so it made her wonder how much of the film is true. Per must say it’s very realistic. There are characters that didn’t exist or things that didn’t happen the same way they are in the movie, but the story, the anecdotes and the events that are in the film actually happened. Almost all of them. What doesn’t quite match the chronology, for example, is a love story when Per meets his girlfriend who is now his wife. In real life it happened in 1984, but the movie ended in 1982. But all the tough, positive and fun things that are in the movie, they happened in real life too.

This is Valdemar’s breakthrough and the reporter is curious how he has found Per Gessle in himself. Valdemar says he listened to Gyllene Tider a lot and to start with, both he and Per are smalltown people, so they have a lot in common. Especially when you come from the same city and have the same dialect. He has some older friends through his father, a few people who were there around in Halmstad at that time. So he carried a lot of things already. Then he talked a little with Per. For Valdemar it feels a bit like they have done it together in a way. He received a little help and he has been able to ask. The whole thing started by recording the songs. There you find much more feeling already in the music. Then, a few months later, it was shooting the movie. By then you would have read all the biographies, listened to even more songs, checked out that era and different clothes and influences that they had.

Per says he was quite negative that there would be a film made about Gyllene Tider. When he was contacted, he thought they were going to make a film about Gyllene Tider’s 40-year career. A great tribute to what they have achieved. But the movie is not about that. The film ends in 1982 when Sommartider was released. Per told Per Simonsson, the director, that he should try to capture this Life on Seacrow Island (Vi på Saltkråkan) feeling. By that PG meant that they should gain empathy and become positive, so those who watch the movie would like these guys in the band. Then it could be an awesome movie. The film starts with Per doing the tests for military service. It is very much his childhood and his teenage years that is reflected. Then the film ends in 1982. So it’s a different kind of film than what people might think. Per finds it exciting and says that the guys who play Gyllene Tider are magically good. It’s incredible. Valdemar says it’s a fun cast, they got on well very quickly. Per says it looks like they had so much fun. Valdemar confirms it was much fun to stand there together and play these songs that you have been singing since you were little. And that it worked and fit. It was really fun.

The reporter says both Per and Valdemar are from Halmstad and while she is sitting here listening to and looking at them, she feels they have many similarities. Per says Valdemar is his avatar. They are laughing.

The reporter says, for those who are not from Halmstad, it seems that their voices are quite similar. She is curious if this is how Valdemar talks anyway. Valdemar says he hasn’t made anything up. He turns to Per and says Per is from Söndrum, so he has the Söndrum dialect. Per says he doesn’t have that at all, he comes from Furet. Haha. Valdemar is a bit more from the countryside, Holm.

The reporter asks Per if the film brings a comeback as well. Per asks if she thinks he needs to come back. The reporter says she meant Gyllene Tider. PG says that Gyllene Tider actually toured last year, so they have absolutely no plans. This autumn he releases a Swedish solo record and next year it’s Roxette with Lena Philipsson. The tour premieres in South Africa on 26th February, then they go to Australia and probably to more countries. Valdemar asks Per if there are any tickets left. Per says Valdemar can come along. Haha.

Valdemar sings in the movie. He says it took a long time for him to find this voice. The reporter asks him if there will be more singing by him. Valdemar laughs and says if it goes well on Spotify, we will see. Per says that the entire soundtrack record is available on Spotify. Valdemar thinks it’s amazing. It’s almost unreal to listen to yourself, your own voice on Spotify. He says it’s almost his own voice, it’s a mix of Per’s and his. Per says it’s Valdemar who sings. The reporter asks PG if Valdemar can sing. Mr. G thinks Valdemar sings really great. Sometimes he tries to sing a little too much like Per in Gyllene Tider. Valdemar agrees. Per says Valdemar has a very good singing voice and he is such a modern artist. He goes to the Ballet Academy, he is a musical singer, he is amazing at it and he knows everything. Per knew absolutely nothing when he started.

The reporter asks the guys what they hope the film will lead to. PG thinks the best scenario is if young people watch it and get the feeling and understand that it’s really cool to start a band and play music and do stuff together, and not just sit and stare at their iPhones all the time. Valdemar thinks it would be much fun if a band culture would grow out of this. The guys say the movie has received a fantastic response so far, a lot of people who see it think it’s fantastic. Valdemar says it really makes him happy to hear that.

The reporter thanks both to the real and to the movie screen Per Gessle for coming to the show.

HERE you can see some more photos by Henrik Martinell / Swedish Radio

Valdemar Wahlbeck was approved by Per Gessle – “Do your thing and it will be fine”

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TT News Agency did an interview with Valdemar Wahlbeck before the Sommartider movie premiere.

Sommartider premiered in theatres on 17th July. It depicts Gyllene Tider’s path from young clumsy guys from Halmstad to pop stars after the breakthrough in the late 1970s. But it is not a documentary portrayal. Director Per Simonsson’s film is a romantic depiction of pop life, as if it were a lyric to a Gyllene Tider song:

This rollercoaster of emotions, longing for love, heart and pain. It was a great inspiration.

Valdemar Wahlbeck plays Per Gessle and recognized himself in a lot of things, because he himself is from Gyllene Tider’s hometown Halmstad. But playing an icon, who is also very much alive, is not easy.

I didn’t really know what to do. So I asked Per and he said “do your thing and it will be fine”. And I did that.

Per Simonsson says that Per Gessle was a little skeptical at first:

I noticed that he was wary until he read the first version of the script. Then he understood that it isn’t a documentary.

When Valdemar Wahlbeck compares today’s world to the 1970s, he sees it as a time where there was not much to do, which was good for creativity. You had to come up with something other than scrolling.

It has inspired me a lot, to go out and do things. The first thing I did was to delete Instagram and Facebook. We’ll see if I get them again. I have nothing against social media, but the way I want to live my lifestyle, I just thought it took a lot of time.

Valdemar Wahlbeck has grown up in the world of entertainment, as the son of comedian Peter Wahlbeck. Other celebrity children are also in the film, such as Jesper Parnevik’s son Phoenix and Lancelot Hedman Graaf, son of entertainer Magdalena Graaf and soccer player Magnus Hedman.

Lancelot Hedman Graaf has his own music career, but did not back down to be associated with Gyllene Tider as well.

I thought like that before, but then I’m such an incredibly manic jumping person. So I can’t keep thinking like that. I’m doing music, I’m competing in Thai boxing and then suddenly I’m sitting here and I’m an actor.

To the question if all the guys aren’t too good-looking to play Gyllene Tider Valdemar replies laughing:

Lol! Yes, maybe. But we had stylists and they didn’t.

Jan-Olov Andersson from Aftonbladet asked Valdemar (21) about how it was playing Per Gessle. Valdemar laughs and says:

I thought I would play the most handsome, Anders. It didn’t even occur to me that I would play Per.

Valdemar Wahlbeck explains why he took the chance when the film company in Gyllene Tider’s hometown of Halmstad was looking for young potential actors for the film.

I have been involved in theatre all my life and studied film in high school. I had already applied and got into the Ballet Academy in Gothenburg. It felt like everyone was applying, so you couldn’t help but do it too. It was the big chance.

After many casting rounds and test filmings, Valdemar got a role in the film, but not as bassist Anders Herrlin, but the main role, as Per Gessle, Gyllene Tider’s frontman.

Jan-Olov asks Valdemar about his own musical background.

You learn to play the piano at the Ballet Academy. On guitar, I can only play chords. But I have always sung, at the Cultural School in Halmstad and in choirs. Then I studied film in high school. When the pandemic came, we made even more films. Singing, theatre, film, it has been a hobby, but now it can become a profession.

When I got the role, I had to take a break from school. So now I’m starting a new class at the Ballet Academy. It’s three years, then I’m a musical artist. After all, it’s several art forms in one.

Valdemar met Per Gessle several times before the shooting.

Both in Halmstad and Stockholm. I expected a “rock star”, but he is a Halmstad dude, very nice. There is a small-town feel around him. If you are from there, you know what it is. Per only said “do your thing” about how I should interpret him.

Valdemar sings a lot of Gyllene Tider songs in the movie, so Jan-Olov is curious how it was.

I have always liked Per Gessle’s voice, now I love it. We could do an entire interview just on how to find the Gessle voice. It’s difficult, genuine, one of a kind. Imitating it is impossible. There is a raspiness in it and it is at once sexy, naive and propulsive. It’s about embracing it, landing it in your own body and… then something that sounds like me comes along.

Three out of five of the young actors in the film are considered as nepo babies, children of famous parents. In Valdemar’s case, his father is Peter Wahlbeck, sometimes controversial stand-up comedian, actor and artist.

I have never seen dad as a public figure. I don’t know “Peter Wahlbeck”, but I know my father. For me, he is the one who cooked our meals or with whom I took a walk in the forest with the dog.

To the question what he thinks about Valdemar playing Per Gessle Valdemar replies:

He loves Per, he is the pride of Halmstad. At the same time, dad is a comedian, so he has joked quite a bit about Per. When the family sat at the dinner table and I told them that I was going to play Per, dad got a little tear in his eye.

Photo by Fredrik Etoall

Per Gessle about ”Per Gessle” – ”He is fantastic”

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TT News Agency published a short interview with Per Gessle before the Gyllene Tider movie premiere.

Per Gessle was initially skeptical of a film about Gyllene Tider. He says:

It felt like there was no reason to make a film about the four decades of Gyllene Tider. You can do that when we have stopped.

But Per Gessle was convinced by director Per Simonsson, whose film “Sommartider”, released in theatres on 17th July, focuses on the road to the big breakthrough.

It captures the feeling of this youthful euphoria that we had when we started the band. When everything is possible while everything is impossible. That’s exactly how it was. I think it turned out great.

The film is not a documentary, but is about him. It was hard to grasp.

I thought I would be very emotionally affected. But I wasn’t. It was hard for me to feel that it was about me. When you watch it, it’s like in a dream. That you suddenly dream about yourself. You don’t realize it’s you. But now that time has passed and I’ve seen it a few times, I’ve taken it in in a different way.

Per Gessle has been a support for director Per Simonsson and also helped with the script work. The pop star is known for his need for control, but not this time.

I’m very fussy when it comes to my own projects. So if someone else is going to do something about us or about me, I think it’s better to let them do it their way. But of course I shout when I think something is wrong.

Valdemar Wahlbeck stars as the young pop nerd Gessle. Per praises him:

I think he is fantastic. I had never met him before, but I think he is an absolutely wonderful person. He is wonderful.

Per Gessle moved on to Roxette after Gyllene Tider. After Marie Fredriksson’s passing, Roxette has lived on in new constellations, next time with Lena Philipsson. On 6th September, there will also be a premiere in Malmö for “Joyride – The Musical” based on Roxette’s music.

Gyllene Tider has also made a comeback from time to time. Most recently last year with a tour and recently a live album was released. But the attention surrounding the new film doesn’t open for more Gyllene Tider.

No, we have no plans. Gyllene Tider is very far down on my list right now. I’m working on my solo record and then it’s Roxette with Lena all next year. And the musical will soon premiere. I’m busy with other things.