Open Hearts

Colour, 35 mm
Denmark, 2002, 103 min
Section: Horizons

Synopsis

Cecilie and Joachim are in love and are planning their future together as man and wife. Marie and Niels, who are around age 40, have been happily married for several years and have three children. The oldest child, 14-year-old Stine, is in puberty and is constantly at loggerheads with her mother. The lives of both couples intersect after a car accident when Marie, upset by yet another argument with Stine, fails to notice Joachim getting out of his car, and she knocks him down. Joachim is immediately taken to hospital. Niels is a doctor working in the hospital where Joachim is being treated. Marie, who feels guilty, asks her husband to take Cecilie under his wing. Open Hearts is a profoundly human film made in accordance with the Dogma manifesto. The director explores the emotions of her characters right down to the marrow and questions the fragility of life security, the strength of love, pain, guilt, and the chance occurrences which can turn our lives upside down. But hope slumbers in all sincere and open hearts.

About the director

Susanne Bier (b. 1960) studied art and design at the Bezalet Institute in Jerusalem, then architecture in London. In 1987 she graduated from a directing course taken at the Danish National Film School. Her graduate film, the short De Saliges O, won first prize at the Student Film Festival in Munich and was distributed via Channel Four all over Europe. Apart from features, Susanne Bier also makes shorts, video clips and commercials. The film Den eneste ene won several Danish film prizes and Open Hearts was screened at various film festivals, including Toronto, where it won a Special Mention, and San Sebastian. Filmography:  De Saliges O (1987), Freud flytter hjemmefra (1990), Det bliver i familien (1993), Pensionat Oscar (1995), Sekten (1997), Den eneste ene (1999), Handen pa hjertet (2000), Open Hearts (Elsker dig for evigt, 2002).