OPEN a film by Ivalo Frank
OPEN has been nominated for the California Film Awards taking place in San Diego on January 26. 2013: http://www.calfilmawards.com/
OPEN has been selected for the Arctic Heat Film Festival which takes place in Jyväskylä, Finland 14.-16. of February 2013
OPEN a film by Ivalo Frank
(2012, 1h, B/W, Danish/ Greenlandic with English subtitles)
What kind of person can kill another? What drives a person to murder? Since 1954 Greenland’s most dangerous criminal and psychiatric patients have served their sentences in Denmark, thousands of kilometers away from their families, for undefined periods of time. OPEN is an art documentary film based upon moving, honest, and critical interviews with five mentally ill patients who live their lives in a closed, locked ward in Denmark home to approximately 18 mentally ill Greenlandic people who have been sentenced to psychiatric care in a court of law. Many of the inmates have committed acts of grievous bodily harm resulting in death, and most battle addictions and personality disorders. ”They are intelligent, sweet, ordinary people like you and me. Almost. Things have just gone wrong for them. All wrong. I wished to meet them as people rather than as the monsters conjured up by media descriptions of violent criminals” (Ivalo Frank, 2012)
As the film develops, the viewer is invited into the most intimate aspects of the five convicts lives thereby getting a rare insight into their personal stories of endless grief, sadness and shame. Furthermore, OPEN touches upon the wider political aspects of the Greenlanders serving sentences. The displacement of Greenland’s most dangerous criminals has been declared a violation of their human right to maintain close family ties, a right they are entitled to under Article Eight of the European Convention on Human Rights. However, the construction of a closed ward in Greenland suffers continuous setbacks because of conflict over cost between the Greenland Government and the Danish Ministry of Justice.
ECHOES has been selected for the Associazione Monte Analogo Film Festival in Italy showing in spring 2013: http://www.monteanalogo.net/ ECHOES & Faith, hope and Greenland screening in Paris at the Danish House in Paris, 142 Champs-Elysées, Paris on March 21st 2013. Ivalo Frank will be doing a talk after the screenings.