”Learning to follow your heart is about the constant circle of wanting to achieve something, daring to do it, learning along the way, and finally reaching what I want to achieve with new experiences and a new belief in myself, which makes me dare even more next time. Most importantly along the way is the reflection – especially about how I treat myself. This is where the greatest learning are to be found.
Kristina Paltén
Kristina began her run across Iran in Bazargan, a border city in North-West of Iran, on September 5th 2015. On November 3rd she became the first woman to have ever run across Iran.
She has two world records in both 12-hours and 48-hours running on a treadmill, and chose Iran for her run for three main reasons: the beautiful nature, the long distance and her own prejudices against the country. Without any prior connection to the country she wanted to explore this unknown country; she only had the western media to rely on for information about the country.
So Kristina challenged herself, her own fear of the unknown and her own prejudices against what a Muslim country means for a lonely woman, running 1144 miles during two months.
In these two months, she stayed with more than 30 families along the way, received countless amounts of fruits, food and cheers from people passing by in their cars. She started her journey not knowing what to expect from it and ended up amazed by the hospitality she experienced. Despite a few threatening situations Kristina now know what she only believed was true before her run, that people are generally kind no matter where you are.
To make sure Kristina truly was alone the cameraman was only with her on the road in Iran during 8 out of the total 58 days it took Kristina to cross Iran.
Since the trailer for her film was released in May 2016, André & Shamim – the producers and directors of the film have gotten request from individuals wanting to organize screenings of the film in their local communities, TV-channels have shown interest in screening the film, film festivals have wanted to screen the film, and more than 7 MILLION PEOPLE have seen the film so far!
