ANGELONIA
A long-distance runner beyond the ordinary
Angelonia is the story about a female pioneer of long-distance running, named Gulli Nilsson (1932-2018). The story is based on the extensive material that she left behind; photos, diapositives, articles, diplomas, letters, postcards, souvenirs and a lot of other personal belongings.
Gulli started running marathons in 1974, at the age of 42, just a couple of years after women were allowed to participate. Gulli’s goal was to be the first Swedish woman to run 25 marathons. She reached that goal eight years later, in 1982. In addition to this she also ran ultra-distance races (100 km each), and participated in a lot of other running and bike races until the age of 84.
Running marathons made her travel the world; she ran in New York, Sao Paolo, Melbourne, Athens and many other places. Coming from a background with limited resources, her life journey is quite remarkable in a time where the majority of women still were mothers and wives.
I’ve wanted to tell this story for a long time. Gulli was my aunt, and she was an important source of inspiration to me as I grew up. She encouraged me to pursue my dreams, and not to listen to people telling me that it was impossible. She used to say ”Don’t care about what they say; let them talk”.
Gulli didn’t have a family of her own, and before she died she gave her closest relatives different tasks, such as taking care of the grave. My task was to take care of all her personal belongings, and she made me promise her to at least take a look at all of them before throwing them away. I kept the promise, and by going through her things I got more and more curious to find the clues and answers to what triggered her to keep running, through life and its obstacles.
A wise woman once said that you can’t be what you can’t see, and I believe that is true. Most of us have someone, or a group of people, who have acted as role models to us in life. Through Angelonia, and by sharing Gulli’s story, I want to emphasize the importance of role models. In order to evolve we need people who dare to live their lives differently.
Gulli’s story is told by a VR experience where I bring the audience on a journey through Gulli’s life and beyond. I choose VR for its ability to create a strong feeling of here and now, beyond space and time - the same feeling that Gulli described she had when she was running.
Angelonia will premiere in 2024.
Pernilla Belfrage, director
Team: VR-developer Mads Vadsholt, Producer Pernilla Belfrage/Anna J. Ljungmark
Angelonia is a co-production with Film i Skåne/commissioning editor Lisa Nyed. It’s made with support from The Swedish Film Institute/commissioner Anna Weitz, The Swedish Arts Grants Committee, Längmanska Kulturfonden and ANIDOX:LAB.
