Deserved winner of the audience award at the 2010 Venice Film Festival, Pernilla August has adapted for the silver screen Svinalängorna, the bestseller by Susanna Alakoski, which deals with the tragic story of a dysfunctional family in a provincial town in the 70s. The film stars Noomi Rapace - the rebellious Lisbeth Salander of the Millennium trilogy by Stieg Larsson – as Leena, who receives a phone call from a hospital in her childhood hometown telling her that her mother is dying. This news takes her on a journey to face her mother for the first time in her adult life. Leena has fought all her life to let go of her grief over her lost and dark childhood. She is now forced to deal with her past to be able to move on.
A simple story in its own way, told with intimate and sincere style, leaving in the foreground the emotions of the children and their strategies for controlling them, in a world of adults swept away by voracious primal desires or stark conformism. Beyond is strongly characterised by amazing actors: beside Noomi there is her husband Ola Rapace, renowned Finnish actors, Ville Virtanen and Outi Mäenpää (who played in several films by Kaurismaki) and the young and talented Tehilla Blad.
Venice Film Festival Programme
