Mother Creature + Joan of Arc
Two intense short films about faith, strength and inner fault lines: 'Mother Creature' by Maria Tórgarð and 'Joan of Arc' by Hlynur Pálmason.
Mother Creature
Maria Tórgarð / Sweden / 2026 / World Premiere / 29 min
A daughter attempts to pull the monster of her childhood out from under the bed in an original, deeply personal and creative film about her mother's mental illness.
At school, a nine-year-old girl raises her hand and tells her classmates that her mother is mentally ill. Thus begins a play written by the daughter herself. The play is her attempt to come to terms with the catatonic schizophrenia that has plagued her mother throughout her life, rather than hiding it away in silence and darkness.
The mother herself has both drawn and written about her schizophrenia, attempting to turn it into a real, tired, exhausted, frustrated mother figure in order to make the people around her understand. And in ‘Mother Creature’, that mother figure is brought to life. In a creative mix of theatre, home video, staging, Faroese nature and classic observation, the filmmaker and daughter attempt to crawl under the bed and look the monster of childhood deep in the eyes. From the co-director of the Faroese CPH:DOX hit ‘Skál’ (2021).
Joan of Arc
Hlynur Pálmason / Iceland & Denmark / 2025 / 62 min
As the seasons change, three young siblings build a knight figure as a target in a field on the edge of the world. A minimalist and very funny film by Icelandic director Hlynur Pálmason.
On the edge of the world, in the beautiful countryside on the east coast of Iceland, two twin boys have started digging a huge hole. When the hole is deep enough, they stick a long piece of timber into it and fill it up again. Now the timber stands like a stump in the middle of it all. Their big sister joins them and together they build a knight figure, which they tie to the stump. Perfect. Now they have a target to shoot arrows at, even though their father has told them not to shoot bows and arrows when he is not at home.
But they don’t care, because he is never home anyway, and now the knight, whom their big sister has named Joan of Arc – because women can be knights too – is to be pierced by arrows. The camera remains motionless throughout Joan of Arc, and the fact that it never gets boring is thanks to the three children in front of the camera and, of course, their father: Icelandic filmmaker Hlynur Pálmason. A beautiful and very funny portrait of the passage of time, children’s games and the ever-changing Icelandic climate.