Dröm vidare (2017)

	Also Known As: Beyond dreams, Träum' weiter
	Year of first release: 2017
	Director: Rojda Sekersöz
	Actors: Evin Ahmad, Gizem Erdogan, Ella Åhman, Segen Tesfai, Malin Persson, Outi Mäenpää
	Country: S
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 01.11.2017, CineStar4, NFDL2017, Swedish with English subtitle
Synopsis: Mirja (Ahmad) must find her place after serving jail time. When she gets a job as a hotel cleaner she starts living a double life. She's torn between her sick mother Sirkka (Mäenpää) and her old group of friends Sarah (Erdogan), Isa (Åhman) and Nina (Tesfai), who have always been her real family. The health problems of her mother growing, she has also to take more care of her sister Emmy (Persson).
Review: This is the opening movie of the NFDL2017 and I was thanks to JoRafCinema accreditation invited for the press viewing before the opening evening.  The plot is quite common but what follows is very original to me. After the screening there was a short talk with the director Rodja Sekersöz, the lead actress Evin Ahmad, the production 2aFilms and Existent Distribution. The director confirmed that she focused on the actresses and on their acting and that lots of scenes are actually improvised. She was "proud that the story is simple. Without love story." Also that the movie deals only with women was not done on purpose but works well. This makes the movie indeed unique and gives another point of view on suburban life than the usual violent man-driven story.  The characters feel useless and see other people in the society as useless as well (also the hotel employees) and do not see themselves as criminals. The criminals being the bankers. This is the only political statement. All the dialogues turning around the relationships to win, to convince and to loose, to disappoint. There is a wink to La Haine with the dialogue with the mirror starting like in that French movie but ending with the feminine touch, relaxing and joking. The improvised scenes show some goofs that exactly the way these happen in real life such as a missed high-five in back ground. The cut inserted coloured screens with uni pastel colours that I could not relate to the scenes. But it gives a positive atmosphere. It was funny to hear time to time remixes of the NFDL theme (originally classic) into hip hop.
Rating: 7 /10