That Special Summer

Colour, 35 mm
Sweden, Finland, 2007, 85 min
IP – International premiere
Section: Another View

Synopsis

Kirsi is a rebellious 12-year-old girl from a mixed Finnish-Swedish family who emigrated to Sweden. Since the death of her father, she has lived alone with her mother Esther, who has never learned to speak Swedish. In the summer of 1984 Kirsi wins a school contest - for the whole summer holiday she is going to be a reporter for the local radio station. Esther however imagines her holiday differently, and wants to open a restaurant with her friend in a summer house in the Finnish countryside, and is thinking of not returning to Gothenburg in the autumn. A happy-end drama about a girl trying desperately to come to grips with a difficult relationship with her mother, with what home means, and last but not least, with first love, a story the director based on memories from her own childhood, tainted by her mother’s unwillingness to adapt to her new country.

About the director

Nanna Huolman (b. 1970, Gothenburg) studied screenwriting and direction in Gothenburg. She makes documentary films, shorts, and video clips. Her 28 minute film Flamingo, about love between two young women, won the 2003 Lesbian Film Festival in Berlin and was screened at a number of other European festivals. The theme of Finnish emigrants in Sweden was one she had dealt with before in her documentary Minna, 17 (1998). That Special Summer (2007) is her feature-film debut.