Shooting Star

Per was bullied from first grade at school. When he finally got friends, it was the older guys that smoked pot and broke into cars. Together with his friends Per started a journey that led to severe drug addiction and crime. But through all this, his mother fought to get him clean. And finally her dream came through. Today Per lectures about his life, and what drugs can do to you.

I saw him lecture myself, when I was at high school. No lecturer has ever made that impact on me. He tells just everything about the consequences you deal with when using drugs. When he lectured, everybody listened intensively through the roller coaster of emotions we all went through.

I accidentally ran into him several years later, founding out that we actually lived in the same building(!) All the memories from his lecture came back to me, and I realized that Per's story has to be told!

Why? Because it’s a universal theme that almost everyone can take part of, no matter if you live in Sweden, The U.S, China or Morocco. It’s a film that shows what bullying can lead to. And it shows that it isn’t just kids from shattered homes with absent parents, that are taking drugs. Per had parents that cared and fought for him. This could be me, you, or your children. It is also a film that will show you that anything is possible if you fight for it. It’s not a sob story, it’s a story that shows how something so bad and ugly can be turned into something good and beautiful.

In the film we follow Per in his work, share his thoughts and make a journey back to Gävle, his hometown, to take part of his story. Why did he become a drug addict? What happened? How did he get free from his abuse?

Let's make this journey with Per and his mother Kersti, So it won't happen again.

Director: Sandra Nelhans

Music composer: Laurence "Lol" Tolhurst