Cerebral Stuff

Alexander, a journalist and former actor and philosopher, tells his little son how worried he is about the lack of spirituality of modern mankind. In the night of his birthday, the third world war breaks out. In his despair Alexander turns himself in a prayer to God, offering him everything to have the war not happen at all.

"The Silence" is about the emotional distance between two sisters. The younger one is still attractive enough to pick up a lover in a strange city. The older one -- even though she is very ill -- would like to make a human connection also but cannot leave the hotel room. Traveling with the sisters is a small boy who escapes into the hotel, meets a troupe of dwarfs. Which sister is this little boy's mother?

An eccentric millionaire dies at a manor in Dalarna in Sweden, leaving behind three sons and a mistress. One of four parallel stories about parents and children. Four sides of Sweden. Four shades of brown.

When 'Vogler's Magnetic Health Theater' comes to town, there's bound to be a spectacle. Reading reports of a variety of supernatural disturbances at Vogler's prior performances abroad, the leading townspeople (including the police chief and medical examiner) request that their troupe provide them a sample of their act, before allowing them public audiences. The scientific-minded disbelievers try to expose them as charlatans, but Vogler and his crew prove too clever for them.

It's almost summer in Sweden and minor indiscretions and misbehavior abound. Leffe likes to show off for his friends and play salacious pranks, especially when he's drinking. Meanwhile, a righteous grade-school teacher doesn't know where to draw the line: she insists her fellow educators need a bit of instruction. Then there are two young teenage girls who like to pose for sexy photos and to party, but one night in a park, one of them is found passed out drunk by a complete stranger.

The patriarch of a seemingly nameless family is a factory owner whose workers transform eggs into specialized tools for scratching certain unreachable human itches. The Father rules both his business and his family with an iron fist. So when The Son rebels against him, it comes as no surprise that The Father doesn't take it very well.

Christian is the respected curator of a contemporary art museum, a divorced but devoted father of two who drives an electric car and supports good causes. His next show is "The Square", an installation which invites passersby to altruism, reminding them of their role as responsible fellow human beings. But sometimes, it is difficult to live up to your own ideals: Christian's foolish response to the theft of his phone drags him into shameful situations. Meanwhile, the museum's PR agency has created an unexpected campaign for "The Square". The response is overblown and sends Christian, as well as the museum, into an existential crisis.

A group of perfectly intelligent young people decide to react to society's cult of aimless, non-creative and non-responsible form intellect by living together in a community of "idiots". Their main activity becomes going out into the world of "normal" people and pretending to be mentally retarded. They take advantage of this situation to create anarchy everywhere they go and try by every possible means to make people annoyed, disturbed, miserable, ridiculous, angered, and shocked. The film starts as they recruit a new lost soul and introduce her to their megalomaniac leader.

A Swedish family travels to the French Alps to enjoy a few days of skiing. The sun is shining and the slopes are spectacular but, during a lunch at a mountainside restaurant, an avalanche turns everything upside down. With diners fleeing in all directions, mother Ebba calls for her husband Tomas as she tries to protect their children. Tomas, meanwhile, is running for his life... The anticipated disaster failed to occur, and yet the family's world has been shaken to its core, a question mark hanging over their father in particular. Tomas and Ebba's marriage now hangs in the balance as Tomas struggles desperately to reclaim his role as family patriarch.

Marilyn Jordan, an American, lives in Stockholm with her Swedish husband and family. Her behavior is bizarre, perhaps mad: she poisons the dog's milk and advises the dog not to drink it; she sets the sheets afire as her husband sleeps; she crawls under the dining table to sing. While detained at airport customs for carrying pruning shears, she meets a young Yugoslav woman and goes with her to a Gypsy enclave where she's fought over, takes a lover, helps with the sordid entertainment at a bar, and returns home more dangerous than before. The film also tells parallel stories of Marilyn's daughter becoming a junior homemaker as the young immigrant practices her striptease.

A young Eastern European immigrant, working in Sweden, is faced with a painful choice when she's laid off from her factory in the name of efficiencies.

An educational film about AIDS contracted by the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare, later to be withdrawn due to its controversial content.

ABOUT ENDLESSNESS is a reflection on human life in all its beauty and cruelty, its splendor and banality. We wander, dreamlike, gently guided by our Scheherazade-esque narrator. Inconsequential moments take on the same significance as historical events: a couple floats over a war-torn Cologne; on the way to a birthday party, a father stops to tie his daughter's shoelaces in the pouring rain; teenage girls dance outside a cafe; a defeated army marches to a prisoner-of-war camp. Simultaneously an ode and a lament, ABOUT ENDLESSNESS presents a kaleidoscope of all that is eternally human, an infinite story of the vulnerability of existence.

Anna Odell, a famous artist, doesn't get an invitation to her class reunion. She then makes a film about what could have happened if she had gone to the reunion and confronted her former bullies. Later she shows the made-up filmed confrontation to her former classmates, and documents their reactions.

Small town Sweden, in the 1950s. This slice-of-life story is also a coming-of-age tale narrated by a young boy with an almost unconscious sense of irony. His single mother is terminally ill, his older brother isn't the warmest person in his life, and twice he is sent to relatives in a supportive, loving village with interesting characters and adventures.

Two teenagers fall in love over the summer, in spite of cynical and disapproving adults who dismiss their relationship as being nothing but young love.

A man arrives in a Swedish port city to work as a waiter at the Hotel Busarewski. The man befriends two co-workers: the talkative Gustav "The Count" Svensson and the beautiful waitress Anna. Anna says that she is only there working temporarily, just like the man himself, and that she will soon move on to work at a seaside hotel. The Count, who is skilled in making others do what he wants, reveals to the man a plan he has that would bring them both lots of money and convinces him to assist in a poorly planned and failed attempt to free a friend of The Count who is in jail.

An astute observation based on real cases of bullying. In central Gothenburg, Sweden, a group of boys, aged 12-14, robbed other children on about 40 occasions between 2006 and 2008. The thieves used an elaborate scheme called the 'little brother number' or 'brother trick', involving advanced role-play and gang rhetoric rather than physical violence.