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Daily dread infuses the raw, claustrophobic story of a teenage carer looking after her troubled mother and little brother

Norwegian writer-director Camilla Strøm Henriksen’s impressive debut is an intelligent family drama refrigerated with horror-movie chills. Partly autobiographical, it’s the story of teenage carer Jill (Ylva Bjørkaas Thedin), who looks after her little brother and their depressed single mum. This is a family unlikely to show up on the radar of social services: Jill’s mum has had some success in the past as an artist; her dad is a famous jazz musician and rarely around.

The claustrophobic first half, with echoes of Polanski’s Repulsion, is confined almost entirely to Jill’s flat where mum Astrid (Maria Bonnevie) swings between depressive slumps and manic bursts of creativity. There’s psychological depth and rawness to these scenes that’s painful to watch. Feeling she’s a failure as an artist,...

If our best laid plans are said to often go awry, what happens to the ones we hastily make in desperation? Writer/director Camilla Strøm Henriksen looks to supply an answer to that very question with her feature debut Phoenix because desperation is all young Jill (Ylva Bjørkaas Thedin) has left. Her fourteenth birthday is just days away and yet she returns home from school to see the beginnings of a celebration abandoned and her mother Astrid (Maria Bonnevie) asleep in bed. Knowing her little brother (Casper Falck-Løvås’ Bo) is on his way, Jill looks to clean up the evidence and/or make excuses so as not to reveal Mom’s depression has completely turned her around from remembering the important things too. It’s seems a tragically all-too familiar act.

What’s interesting is that the truth isn’t quite what Jill believes. Whether or not it’s better or worse,...

Produced by Hummelfilm, ‘Borg vs McEnroe’ star Sverrir Gudnason is amongst the cast.

Haugesund’s industry programme New Nordic Films will kick off with a screening of Camilla Strøm Henriksen’s Norwegian family drama Phoenix (Foniks), which was pitched as a work in progress at the event last year.

Gudny Hummelvoll produces for Hummelfilm, with a cast that features Ylva Bjørkaas Thedin, Casper Falck-Løvås, Maria Bonnevie and Sverrir Gudnason (Borg vs McEnroe).

New Nordic Films has also today confirmed the projects for Scandinavian Debut Pitch:

A Foot In The Grave (En amputasjon), dir Simon Tillaas (Nor) Daddy’s Girl, dir...