Presence

When Yohanna started the first grade in school, her classmates began bullying her. She kept getting bullied for six years. This is her story.

"Porträtt av Åsa" observes the everyday life of Åsa, a young child growing up in rural Sweden. Through quiet, observational scenes at home and on brief excursions with her parents, the film records her encounters with ordinary spaces, objects, animals, and movement, capturing the world as it appears to her at an early age.

Karl and Kristina Nilsson work on a farm in a cold and desolate area of 19th century rural Sweden. Growing privations, combined with increasing social and religious persecution, motivate the Nilssons and many of their neighbors to strike out for the United States. Following a treacherous ocean crossing and an equally grueling land passage, the emigrants find themselves in seemingly idyllic Minnesota.

A Swedish immigrant family struggles to adapt to their new life on the American frontier during the second half of the 19th century amidst civil war, native uprising and the lure of gold in California.

Karl and Kristina Nilsson work on a farm in a cold and desolate area of 19th century rural Sweden. Growing privations, combined with increasing social and religious persecution, motivate the Nilssons and many of their neighbors to strike out for the United States. Following a treacherous ocean crossing and an equally grueling land passage, the emigrants find themselves in seemingly idyllic Minnesota.

Four short stories from Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland.

In a time of social change and unrest, war and poverty, a young working class woman, Maria, wins a camera in a lottery. The decision to keep it alters her whole life.

It's the mid-1930s, and brakeman Kvist has had enough of working on the train, jumped off, and started to walk on the train tracks in the middle of nowhere in Lapland, Northern Finland, hoping to find new work and adventures. Based on the novella by the famous Swedish author Eyvind Johnson.

A working class teenager comes of age in 1910s rural Sweden, moving through a series of jobs and romances that gradually shape his future.

Sören Mårtensson is a middle school teacher. His classroom occupied by half-grown children. His work is tormenting him and at night he is haunted by nightmares.

The Swedish 19th century engineer Salomon August Andrée sets out to become the first man on the north pole. His idea is to launch a polar expedition using a hydrogen balloon, together with two friends. The balloon, "The Eagle", takes off from Svalbard in 1897, but the three men are never heard from again.

Knut Hamsun is Norway's most famous and admired author. Ever since he was young he has hated the English for the starvation they caused Norway during WWI. When the Germans occupy Norway 9 April 1940 he welcomes them and the protection they can give from Great Britain. He supports the national socialist ideals, but opposes the way these ideals are turned into action - that Norwegians are jailed and executed. His wife Marie travels in Germany during the war as a sign of support from Knut and herself.

A tale of a young woman, Britt, who has two flings, but finds herself with difficult decisions when she finds herself pregnant.

A young Swedish boy tries to enjoy his birthday with his mother in the maternity ward and his father having forgotten about the occasion.

Zandy Allan purchases a mail-order bride, Hannah Lund. He treats her as a possession, without respect or humanity, until their shared ordeal as they struggle to survive develops in him a growing love.

The film is based on a true occurrence in Sweden in 1988. A Finnish couple murdered a young boy and his parents when they prevented the theft of the son's bicycle. The film tries to describe the relationship between the dominant Jari, who calls himself "Il Capitano", and his more mature "soldier" Minna, that develops into mutual dependence.