Winner of Best Screenplay (Johan Fasting, Erika Calmeyer) and Nominated for Discovery Award
Q&A with Erika Calmeyer
On a fishing trip with her two young kids, single mother Elin’s world is torn apart as her son falls into the river and drowns. Struggling to get their life back together, rumours begin to circulate in the small community that his sister pushed him. What really happened that day?
Elin, a single mother since the death of her husband, takes her despondent eight-year-old daughter Storm and Storm’s hyperactive little brother Ulrik on a fishing-trip. But there’s trouble on the horizon and, when Elin takes her eye off the children for a few minutes, Ulrik winds up dead. As rumours start to circulate that Storm pushed her little brother into the water, Elin tries to protect her daughter, despite having misgivings of her own.
Mother-daughter relationships can be a little fraught at the best of times, and this is certainly the case in this stunning slow-burn psychological drama. The acting from the small cast, including Ane Dahl Torp as Elin and Ella Maren Alfsvåg Jørgensen as the eponymous Storm, is outstanding, as is the cinematography.
Muted colours (delicate teals, earthy oranges and ochres, greys and the greens of the spectacular Norwegian forests) echo the depressed affect of the bereaved mother and her introverted, frustrated daughter, making this an emotional and elegant feature debut from director Erika Calmeyer.
Storm raises a fascinating and uncomfortable question that no parent would ever want to face: how do you go on loving and protecting your child when you suspect her of fratricide?
Anna Taborska
This film is Triple F Rated.
