Christian Lollike

Middle-aged cake manufacturer Niels is on the verge of a breakdown as his factory is on the brink of bankruptcy. His wife Else tries to save the factory by calling home their daughter June and her husband Jonny, who propose a comprehensive modernization focused on the production of healthy cakes. Niels cannot cope with this modernization process and instead falls head over heels in love with the factory's new cleaning lady, Zeinab.

It's a movie about a subject that captivates me. And I can see that it also captivates the world and people and has done it at all times. It is the meeting with the stranger. Why is it so difficult to relate to those who's not like ourselves? We constantly divide the world into 'us against them'. Each time we meet a new person, we define ourselves in contrast to the other. We do not look at what connects us, but what separates us. It seems like something that is pervasive - not just for Denmark, Europe and the US, but in every possible society and culture in the world at all times. It is a common human condition that we have endless difficulty in dealing with the stranger. With this movie, I want to ask a single question that sets the world on fire. It is an exploration of my own wonder why the encounter with the stranger is so explosive and can make seemingly sensible people like myself and others mad.

The men the European public admires most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.