11/02/2009

A true tearjerker about a 14-year-old girl who tries to cope with her mother, who is bed-ridden and dying of cancer, and her teenage problems, Lisa Siwe’s Glowing Stars [+see also:
trailer
film profile] sent audiences of the Babylon Cinema – where it screened as part of the Generation 14Plus section of the Berlinale – into emotional turmoil yesterday.

Based on the best-selling novel by Johanna Thydell, Glowing Stars is emotionally involving from frame one, without ever falling into melodrama. Jenna takes care of her sick mother as best as she can, while attending school. She and her single mother have a wonderful warm and fun time together, and dream of taking a trip to Thailand.

While Jenna is strong and puts up a brave front, when her teacher asks her to write an essay about love, one line says it all: “Mum, if you die, I’ll kill myself.”

When her mother worsens, they move to her grandmother’s flat but things become tense as Jenna does not like her serious, patronising nanny. She becomes friends with the class “cool girl” Ulli, who parties and has fun with boys and booze. When Jenna’s mother’s condition becomes critical, Ulli helps Jenna see the “glowing stars” in the dark sky.

Glowing Stars is reminiscent in its realistic feel and style of Mike Leigh’s work, an influence that first-time director Siwe is proud to cite. “I love Mike Leigh’s films, in particular Secrets and Lies,” she said. “[His] films are tender, humble, very human films, and this is what I wanted to capture with Glowing Stars. I tried to make it both funny and sad, because life is like that. I wanted people to be able to recognize themselves in the characters, so I shot the film with a small camera to be as close as possible to the characters.”

All the performances are excellent, especially from professional actresses Annika Halin (the mother) and Anki Liden (the grandmother) and newcomer Josefine Mattsson (Jenna). Produced by Filmlance International, Glowing Stars is being sold internationally by Delphis Films.