Djevelen holder lyset

At the psychiatric clinic Varden the attendants are mad and the inmates are sane.

On a day in April 1996, four stories play out in the confines of a flat in the heart of Oslo.

The story of Jonas Wergeland, the boy from Grorud who became Norway's biggest TV celebrity.

A young boy named Pelle falls in love with the drug addict Lena. Then he and his friend Proffen try to save her from drugs.

Herman works as a delivery boy for a flower shop after school. One day delivers a bouquet to Rosa Stern, a woman in her early 40s who lives behind heavy curtains in an apartment filled with a mysterious atmosphere. In the coming weeks, Herman will receive more bouquets to be delivered to Rosa. Rosa's visits are becoming increasingly important to him.

Elling has lived with his mother all his life. Mom is the practical one, while Elling ponders the more theoretical aspects of life. He spends his time in their apartment reading books and looking at the neighbours through the living room window. Elling doesn't seem to need to be around others like most people. That's why Elling is less than enthusiastic when his mother suddenly decides to take her son on a beach vacation to Spain. Reluctantly, Elling agrees. After all, a lady at her age needs a good man by her side. But what Elling refuses to realize is that Mom is not only old, but also sick. Very sick. On her last vacation she tries to get Elling to see that life is bigger than their living room.

The bothers Ken and Bent are separated when their parents are divorced, and grow up as very different persons, before they meet as grown ups. They help each other out, but some years later Bent disappears. Only his crashed Buick is found.

A married couple, unable to conceive, search for a male donor, but jealousy creates problems when the husband spies on his wife while posing as her brother.

For the second time the two curious boys named Pelle and Proffen get mixed up in dangerous business.

Marianne visits her dying father in the hospital who tells of a box of old letters that she must promise to destroy. Marianne chooses to do the opposite, and reads them instead. There she finds shocking accusations against her father, who allegedly murdered a young woman 25 years ago.

Allan and Lisa flee the war-torn city of Sweetwater with their young son for the safety of the municipal dump in this sleepy war drama. They join other displaced survivors who were driven from their homes, looking for a better life on the outskirts of Sweetwater.

Film director Pierre is making an erotic thriller with his girlfriend Greta. When men start disappearing, parallells between the movie and real life becomes obvious.

The body of a local teenage girl named Annie was found by an idyllic pond in the woods. The suspect list grows indefinitely. However, as Inspector Sejer and his partner Jacob Skarre question the girl's family, and others, they realize she has a shocking secret she shared with no one.

Gunder Jomann lives in the small place of Elvestad. He prepares to receive his wife, Poona Bai, who he met and married in India. Gunder gets delayed when his sister is injured in a car accident and he sends the local taxidriver to transport her to him at the hospital but the chauffeur do not find her. The following day the body of a foreign woman is found on a meadow, few meters from Gunders house. Inspector Konrad Sejer tries to unravel the mystery and discoveres soon that the dead person is Gunder's wife, Poona. Who killed her, and why?

Helga Joner's daughter Ida leaves home bound for the local shop riding a yellow bicycle and wearing a red cycle helmet. Helga is shown to be an over-anxious mother who worries excessively about her daughter. She even resorts to calculating the approximate time Ida will take to reach the shop. As night starts to fall, and Ida doesn't return, Helga becomes worried about her daughter, going so far as to phone the shop to see if Ida is there, but she is told that Ida never arrived. Helga and her sister Ruth search for Ida but to no avail. Finally they call the police.