The Meetingroom / Møterommet
In this kafkaesque meeting a mother and her son is fighting a clogged bureaucracy that intensify the personal suffering it is supposed to remedy. The story is based on the directors own experiences with her brother suffering from schizophrenia. The film is inspired by both theater and documentary.
Short, drama 2017
HD Red 16:9
Duration: 14.49 min
Jury Statement The Norwegian Shortfilmfestival
This year’s HOURGLASS award is given by the Writers Guild of Norway, go to a film where the screenplay shines through a complicated piece of work. The film masterfully manages to describe a situation and tell a story that we as an audience know its fiction, but that always feels real. That´s not easy. The films have a clear and apparent story that helps us to understand the frustration and powerlessness the people in the film feels. It’s a story that moves us emotionally while we were watching and sticks around after we have seen it. It shows a side bureaucracy specifically mental health care, that cannot turn our backs to. How mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters, often have to put their life on hold in order to care of their sick ones. All because the system is unable to take care of them. This year’s winner is an important film and though it’s a screenplay, it manages to portrait exactly this reality.
Credits
Director: Ellen Ugelstad
Script: Einar Sverdrup, Ellen Ugelstad
Cinematography: Audun Magnæs
Editor: Kirsti Marie Hougen, Ellen Ugelstad
Producer: Twentyone Pictures
Cast
Edvin Anstensrud
Trine Wiggen
Stig Frode Henriksen
Christina Ørbekk Nikolaisen
Hilde Olaussen
Marianne Mørk Larsen
Toni Usman
Supported by
NORWEGIAN FILMINSTITUTE (NFI)
VISUAL ARTS FOUNDATION (BKV)
THE FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION FOUNDATION (FRITT ORD)
Links:
www.makingsensetogether.com
Jury Statement Nordic Docs Special Mention
Here is an incredible well-played docudrama in incredible concise wrapping. We meet a young boy with a diagnosis in psychiatry. The majority of the film takes place through a bureaucratic, kafkaesque meeting, where Kjetil's ability to work and the ability to ve released is discussed. It goes from cold to lukewarm and back again. The Docudrama is so realistic that many viewers will think that what they experience is from reality. The replicas here sit so it hurts and the actors perform tremendously. The region is tight and cold-blooded, genre play is effective. This film shows how intimate, creative fictions can scarcely replace our documentary film experience, thus reducing the distance between so-called reality and the other, or should we say: the other realities, if they exist.
