In this powerful documentary, Mama Yang, an 84-year-old woman living in New York, finds herself in correspondence with 45 high security prison inmates she views as her own children. Most are Chinese American immigrants, and see in Mama Yang a mother figure they never knew before they stepped through prison walls.
For Mama Yang though, the story is about more than Christian charity. She had already lived a full life in Taiwan when her husband died at age sixty and her son lost their house in a financial blunder. She moved to the US to start anew and lives with a Taiwanese American granddaughter that remains distant. In a film marked by family separations, Mama Yang writes letters – whether to the incarcerated or to her own granddaughter – to heal lifetimes of wounds.
Problematic father figures and a pill-pushing doctor lead a Danish man into darkness in Isabella Eklof's powerful drama echoing with colonial conflict.
Jan is on the run from himself and his traumas after being sexually abused by his father. Now he lives with his family in Nuuk, Greenland, where he works as a nurse and does his best to assimilate into the local community. However, his past catches up with him through a letter from his now dying father, plunging him into a downward spiral of drugs and extramarital affairs. Emil Johnsen is captivating in the lead role, portraying Jan as both boyishly fragile and deeply unsettling. Haunted by his own father figure he's reflecting Denmark's paternalistic relationship with Greenland and its population. Isabella Eklof follows up her acclaimed debut (Holiday, GFF 2018) with a courageous exploration of human darkness, based on Kim Leine's autobiography, solidifying her position as one of our most exciting Nordic directors.
源自：https://program.goteborgfilmfestival.se/en/program/kalak
