MIFF: DREAMS (SEX, LOVE)
Theatre Royal, Castlemaine - Cinema (Castlemaine, VIC)
Sunday, 17 August 2025 7:00 pm
Dir. Dag Johan Haugerud Norway.
A teenage girl gives voice to her desires in this charming, thought-provoking Norwegian coming-of-age drama. Johanne, 17, has written a novel in which a high school student falls in love with her newly arrived French teacher, Johanna – an intimate bildungsroman of sexual awakening, budding obsession and eventual flirtation that, in the specificity of its details, appears to blur fact and fiction. Unbowed by any notion of shame, Johanne shares the story with the two most important people in her life: her single mother, Kristin, and grand mother Karin. Startled by this daring work, Kristin and Karin begin to wonder if its events are real or fantasy. But as they attempt to uncover the truth, they are forced to face the lack of passion in their own lives. Winner of the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlinale – the first Norwegian film to ever claim the top honour – this achingly empathetic culmination to Haugerud’s disarming cinematic triptych has been hailed for its uniquely sensitive depiction of a transformative first crush and the power of taking control of one’s own narrative
A teenage girl gives voice to her desires in this charming, thought-provoking Norwegian coming-of-age drama. Johanne, 17, has written a novel in which a high school student falls in love with her newly arrived French teacher, Johanna – an intimate bildungsroman of sexual awakening, budding obsession and eventual flirtation that, in the specificity of its details, appears to blur fact and fiction. Unbowed by any notion of shame, Johanne shares the story with the two most important people in her life: her single mother, Kristin, and grand mother Karin. Startled by this daring work, Kristin and Karin begin to wonder if its events are real or fantasy. But as they attempt to uncover the truth, they are forced to face the lack of passion in their own lives. Winner of the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlinale – the first Norwegian film to ever claim the top honour – this achingly empathetic culmination to Haugerud’s disarming cinematic triptych has been hailed for its uniquely sensitive depiction of a transformative first crush and the power of taking control of one’s own narrative