30/5 — 5/6/2024
64th International Film Festival
for Children and Youth

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Section: International Competition of European First Films

Where Have All the Good Men Gone (2016) 15

Denmark | 2016 | 94 min.

Living in a tiny trailer in the back of their family's bar, Sofia and her older half-sister Olivia live a rough life filled with abuse and exploitation. Sofia's stepfather, Lars, is a violent man who keeps the girls and their mother under an iron thumb. When their mother lets it slip that Sofia's biological father may still be alive and living nearby, Sofia packs up her and Olivia's bags and they hit the road, going off of an address found on an old love letter. What they find is rather unexpected. Adam, Sofia's father, is holed up in an isolated farmhouse surrounded by barbed wire and signs that warn everyone to "KEEP OUT!" An ex-soldier with severe PTSD, Adam lives alone and has no interest in opening up to anyone, much less two young runaways. The girls camp out outside his property until he finally gives in and lets them stay with him, and slowly but surely they all grow close to resembling the kind of stable, caring family the girls have always wanted. Things can't stay perfect forever, though, and the girls realize they might not have gone far enough to escape Lars.

CountryDenmark
Year2016
Duration94 min
Rating15
LanguageDanish
SubtitleEnglish, Czech
Directed by Rene Frelle Petersen
Screenplay Rene Frelle Petersen
Director of Photography Lars Reinholdt
Music Benjamin de Murashkin
Edited by Carsten Søsted
Contact Marco Lorenzen

Biography

A Danish director and screenwriter. He worked as an assistant director on films by many Danish filmmakers. He made his independent foray with short live-acted films, e.g. The Smell of Hair (De kaldte os frisører, 2007) and (Going Nowhere, 2011). He made his successful feature-length debut with Where Have All the Good Men Gone (Hundeliv, 2016), which he made at his own production company 88miles.

Bullying, Drama, Youth, Family, First Feature, Relationships, Freedom, Youth