Above Dark Waters

Pete is growing up with his sister in a town in south western Lapland. From the outside the family looks whole, but at night the sounds of fighting and crying come through. The stepfather turns dangerous when he drinks or when he thinks he has cause to be jealous. Because the mother has already been divorced once, she cannot bring herself to risk a second separation, and the children grow up in that grey area between love and fear. The film looks from the child’s point of view and shows the violence not as a scene but as the permanent condition of the house. Peter Franzen adapted it from his own autobiographical novel; the hundred and seven minute Finnish film was completed in 2013.