Emma's Shadow

Emma is eleven, the only child of a well off Danish family. Her parents seem more taken up with their own concerns than with her. One evening she overhears her mother talking about how terrible it must be to have a child kidnapped. So Emma decides to stage her own kidnapping. On the way she comes across a sewer cleaner named Malthe. She convinces him she is a Russian princess whose family is being chased by Bolsheviks, and he lets her stay in his very modest place. After a few days Emma decides to go home. But just as she is about to, she overhears the servants: her parents do not seem particularly upset. Søren Kragh-Jacobsen’s Danish film of 1988 runs ninety three minutes.