The Long Road

Denmark, 1961. Bjørn, a middle-class boy in his early teens, wants to be accepted by Steen, a bullying peer of his with wealthy but freezingly cold parents. Bjørn's other good friend is Mulle, a cheerful and more childish working-class boy. All three seem friends at first, but gradually Steen starts pushing Mulle away while pulling the impressionable Bjørn with him towards more and more violence.

A middle aged married woman suffers from depression. Her husband suggests she get a dog, but instead she gets a job. Treatment of the women workers leads her into a hilarious fantasy in which roles are reversed and bearded men sit behind typewriters worrying about their looks and what to buy for dinner. She gets involved in a strike and loses her job, but has found some friends and a more positive attitude to life.

Adam and Eva Nymann and their 5-year-old daughter, Rose, are a typical 1997 family with two full-time jobs, daycare, and stress. Although Adam helps out at home, Eva is still primarily responsible for the child and the household. One morning, when Adam is dropping Rose off at daycare, they are involved in a serious traffic accident. In a near-death experience, Adam meets their two guardian angels. They tell him that Rose is dying, while Adam himself will die. But the angels give Adam another chance.

Description of Irene, a modern, free-spirited girl with a good job as press secretary for a film company. Nevertheless, she finds it difficult to get a grip on her life. She has grown distant from her husband, but for her daughter's sake she does not want to divorce him. Her lover Ebbe, a controversial journalist, is closer to her, but his violent infatuation can also be too much of a good thing. In a series of casual erotic relationships, Irene does not find what she is looking for either.

Dramatic events destined Kate Kendel to live with various missionary foster parents in Sierra Leone and Scandinavia. At the age of 16, she returned to her biological family in Sierra Leone and was genitally mutilated against her will. We follow Kate back to her roots, where the circumciser's' secret society, Bundu, is so feared that no government has yet been able to rock its power. "The Secret Pain" is a strong portrait of the psychological consequences women face after this kind of physical mutilation.