Niels Barfoed

Aged 63, Karen Blixen is at the pinnacle of her fame and next in line to win the Nobel Prize for literature. It has been 17 years since she gave up her famous farm in Africa, only to return to Denmark with her life in ruins. Devastated by syphilis and having lost the love of her life, she has reinvented herself as a literary sensation. One day, she meets a talented 30-year-old poet whom she promises literary stardom if he in return will obey her unconditionally, even at the cost of him losing everything else in his life.

In this Danish suspense film, the foibles of the psychological helping professions are wryly surveyed. A woman has murdered her husband. That's clear enough. Now the woman is in a psychiatric hospital because it seemed clear to the judges that she was not fully competent. Her doctor, who is helping her a great deal, has problems of his own. First, he is against the cookie-cutter treatment practices of his hospital, second, he is on shaky mental ground himself. Then he violates his therapeutic ethics by carrying on an affair with the woman he is treating.

The film is a window into the world of fifteen-year-old Tim, sharing his joys and sorrows and his first encounter with love, during the German occupation of Denmark in World War II.

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