'Shapeshifter' or 'A Tale of Stockholm': A short film by Shima Niavarani

Shima Niavarani works very hard.

This is evidenced from the long list of credits that span the stage, TV, film and radio over her 17-year career. It’s also evidenced in the fact that, while the rest of Scandinavia was lounging at their summer houses, Niavarani was working on a short film commissioned by Vogue Scandinavia for our October-November issue.

Niavarani is a writer and director, she is an actor and singer, and she has been accumulating awards since she first hit the stage at age 19, in a show she wrote and starred in, and that went on to tour for over a year.

Her multifaceted talents have seen her become a stage icon and a familiar face on TV, even hosting the Swedish finals of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. Currently working on a feature film, she somehow found time to write, produce and star in a short film called 'Shapeshifter' or 'A Tale of Stockholm', exclusively for Vogue Scandinavia.

The tragicomedy tells the tale of a woman isolated in a Stockholm flat, who suddenly experiences a transformation after inhaling the fumes of a mouldy pizza. “She is transformed into her perfect version of reality and questions what is reality, what is imagination. But it is a story of transformation, a story of loneliness and dysfunctionality,” explains Niavarani.

“I wanted to start with the isolation, with someone being alone, inside of her own mind, and what happens when that situation occurs” she says. “I love to isolate myself. I love being alone because I create so much.”

Niavarani says that she was very lonely as a child as her parents moved around a lot, and as an Iranian émigré sometimes she struggled to fit in. “I used my imagination and would imagine painting on the walls, like paint- ing a canvas,” she says. “I really wanted to create this character who can do that. Because we've all been so isolated right now, we can identify with this isolation.”

Niavarani, a lover of fashion, was instrumental in creating both the characters in the film and their aesthetics, which not only included wardrobe but also hair, nails and makeup looks, realised by Johan Hellström, Frida Selkirk and Linda Hallberg respectively. “The film is really an ode to what fashion can do and what has been. For me it's about what fashion does,” she says.