114 mins, 1997

    Sweden 1996, the Lucia festival in December. Catti and Mikael are in the maternity ward for the birth of their first child. They are finally going to put their stormy relationship in order and create a secure home. Maria, a foreigner in the same ward, turns to Catti for help whenever she is unable to express herself in Swedish. Suddenly the police arrive at the hospital to take Maria away. Maria jumps through the window to land on the lawn three floors below and runs away, with the police on her heels. Maria’s baby is, however, still in the hospital. Catti feels instinctively that something is wrong about the police wanting to arrest Maria. With the help of Ingrid, the midwife, she manages to smuggle Catti’s child out of the hospital. Catti then persuades Mikael to help in finding Maria and the baby’s father, Stefan. During the search, they lose touch with each other. Step by step, they are forced far away from the dream of quiet domesticity that had been within their reach a few days earlier. They see a hidden aspect of Sweden, an aspect that is brutal and unfamiliar to them.

Credits:-

Directed by Richard Hobert
 

Cast:

Lena Endre (Ingrid), Camilla Lunden (Catti), Jakob Eklund (Erok), Goran Stangertz (Mikael)

    Richard Hobert has worked in radio, theatre, television and film as a writer and director ever since he finished his studies in 1973. He has made a large number of highly acclaimed films, including Autumn in Paradise (1995), which won the Amanda prize for the Best Nordic Film, The Hands (1994), which won the Ingmar Bergman Prize for Creativity, Spring of Joy (1994), described as his masterpiece and awarded at eight international film festivals, and The Fifteenth Chieftain (1992) which won the Grand Prix at the Salerno International Film Festival.