The Swedish jazz singer Neneh Cherry is starring in the Mark Cousins-directed film “Stockholm My Love”, in which she also provides voice overs and five songs in the film’s soundtrack.
The film portraits the Swedish capital and Neneh Cherry plays a 47-year-old architect who loves buildings and the way they influence people’s lives.
In 1996 she released her album “Man”, which featured hits with the likes of Youssou N’Dour, and after that she stopped making solo alkbums, but got frustrated at the idea that she had suddenly “disappeared”.
Neneh Cherry isn’t necessarily making a “come back” since she has been here all the time. But in an interview in The Guardian last year, she was asked: “Where did you go for 18 years?”
“I knew my kids were growing up fast and I decided to catch those years. That’s an option, isn’t it?” she answered.
Neneh Cherry is 52 years old now and living in Stockholm, where she was born to a Sierra Leonean father and a Swedish mother. She is still making music and now also acting. Her breakthrough came with the hits “Buffalo Stance” and “7 Seconds”.
Some ad company bought a lot of air time during March Madness this year and filled it with a commercial featuring some generically pretty blonde woman, supermodel Natasha Poly, expressing her fun, sexy style with some of the hottest looks from a Spring 2016 collection, dancing around to “Buffalo Stance”.
Neneh’s daughter Mabel McVey is also a talented musician. “Cities have their own personalities,” she says. “They get into your head and influence your relationships. The city you live in can make you the happiest or the saddest person in the world.” Mabel, born in Malaga, Spain and raised in Stockholm, truly found her home in London after moving to England a couple of years back. “It’s quite straight and conformist in Sweden,” explains McVey, who studied music production in Scandinavia. “I felt as though I wasn’t able to admit to liking all the music I really love, like Destiny’s Child and Justin Timberlake. There’s more freedom in London.”
About “Stockholm My Love” says the Irish film maker Mark Couisins, who’s best known for the 15-part “The Story of Film: An Odyssey” documentary series 4 years ago. “Stockholm My Love” is his first feature-length fiction film, “We wanted to make a city symphony. Cities are noisy, messy, but teeming with life. Our story tries to capture this.”
The story sees the architect (Cherry) still in shock after a traffic accident, and taking long early-morning walks through the city she loves.
It reads like a filmed love letter of sorts to the city – Stockholm – one of those seemingly plotless, quiet films that’s more about individual moments experienced by lead characters, however unrelated, with an entire city as a starring character.
Stockholm My Love, written by Tor Kjolberg