a stranger in the world
Sturla Pilskog / Norway / 2024 / 30 min
A filmmaker and his son with autism. A composer and his musical work inspired by the slow processes of dripstone caves. Two parallel love stories.
A film director carefully tries to approach his autistic son.
A composer is inspired by a walk deep into the Earth.
Both experiencing loneliness and an urge to unite.
Can they come to a common ground in the end?Composer Magnar Åm wanders through a stalactite cave deep underground to compose a musical work. Once a week, one drop falls from the stalactite at the top onto the stalagmite at the bottom. Slowly, perhaps over millions of years, they grow together. From this time perspective, human life is mercifully short – but maybe you can still see life in the drop?
Director Sturla Pilskog finds it difficult to understand the reality in which his son, who has autism, lives and acts. Through fragmented memories of his son’s challenged sensory life, he tries to find some kind of pattern. With the composer as a philosophical guide, the director tries to find a way to the center of the drop and in many ways find harmony in life.
In the encounter with the composer’s sensory world and his son’s autism, Pilskog has created a touching and artistic documentary – or rather, a journey of natural philosophy – about distance and closeness between people.