Halal

awesomenessness is a creative studio founded by Kalle Hellzén, a Swedish-born film director who built and ran the U.S. HQ of the famous fashion/creative collective ACNE. Kalle is known for his visually distinct, offbeat, character-driven comedy work for major players like Nike, Skittles, Burger King, Toyota and Die Antwoord, and has got a great track record of incorporating tech to push the frontier of narrative media. He’s got one foot firmly rooted in Swedish new wave cinema and the other somewhere wholly different: influenced by generative AI, David Hockney, Terry Gilliam and Stanley Kubrick. It’s a fun, colourful and unique approach that immerses the viewer in fantastical realities inhabited by the underdogs and eccentrics that we all root for and, somewhere deep down, fundamentally identify with. His work unapologetically pushes the boundaries of humour until it’s just the right amount of wrong.

Kalle also has had a long career on the agency side, among others at Wieden+Kennedy, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, R/GA and 180 Amsterdam. His boundary pushing creativity and use of innovation have earned him numerous awards and heavy metals, as well as jury duties on major awards shows. His work has been featured in major news outlets like the Guardian, CNN and Reuters. Kalle enjoys oil painting to explore a life beyond screens and cleanse his creative palate.