INTERNATIONAL DRAMATIC COMPETITION
Phoenix
Phoenix 2018 86 min.
fot. kadr z filmu

Camilla Strøm Henriksen’s impressive debut feature starts with Jill, a teenage girl (a touching performance from Ylva Thedin Bjørkaas), coming home from school and nervously looking for her mother in the apartment. She carefully searches the dark, untidy place cluttered with empty liquor bottles, only to find that her mother is asleep. She returns to her usual routine, but her fear and anxiety make sense—her mother has been struggling with depression and mental illness for years and she appears to be an alcoholic. Jill’s long-estranged father, a musician with few responsibilities, comes into town for a couple of days; Jill has to take care of her younger brother and desperately tries to hold on to the appearance of a perfectly “normal”, happy family, like any other. Phoenix smartly subverts the typical roles of mothers and daughters and depicts the complicated reality of a teenage girl who is forced to grow up too fast. Seemingly realistic narration is juxtaposed with more surreal, dreamy scenes that appear to be drawn from the brave and resilient girl’s nightmares.

Camilla Strøm Henriksen
Director
Director

Camilla Strøm Henriksen

Screenplay

Camilla Strøm Henriksen

Pictures

Ragna Jorming

Music

Patrik Andrén

Cast

Ylva Bjørkaas Thedin, Maria Bonnevie, Sverrir Gudnason, Casper Falck-Løvås, Kjersti Sandal

Production

Norway

Color
colour
Prize
Toronto IFF - Honourable Mention
Projection list