Limbo

The first feature film from Danish-born, Berlin-schooled writer-director Anna Sofie Hartmann is an astonishingly poised coming-of-age character study set in her hometown of Nakskov, which also happens to be home to the country’s biggest sugar factory. While the town is ensconced in its seasonal sugar beet harvest, its high schoolers are rehearsing a production of Sophocles’s Antigone. Gradually, the quiet, precocious, and spirited Sara (Annika Nuka Mathiassen) begins to develop feelings for her drama teacher, Karen (Sofia Nolsø). Oscillating between breathless intimacy and tranquil observation, Limbo is brilliant for showing as much as it chooses to leave beyond its frame, hewing its formal contours to the fluctuating subjectivity of its main character as she encounters this formative experience. 

Image © DFFB