Search Film, Company, People...

PRISONERS OF THE GROUND

By Stella VAN VOORST VAN BEEST

Documentary - Completed 2009

Prisoners of the Ground deals with survival in the dark; a portrait of an inverted, melancholic society; a Finnish tango captured on film.

- Year of production
- 2009
- Genres
- Documentary
- Countries
- NETHERLANDS, BELGIUM
- Languages
- FINNISH
- Budget
- 0.3 - 0.6 M$
- Duration
- 80 mn
- Director(s)
- Stella VAN VOORST VAN BEEST
- Writer(s)
- Stella VAN VOORST VAN BEEST
- Producer(s)
- Denis VASLIN (Volya Films B.V.)
- Synopsis
- On the rhythm of the Finnish tango, we travel through Finland in search of “prisoners of the ground”. How do they define and experience their reality, and how are they trying to escape it?
  The film starts with a long, quiet and dark winter and ends with a short and loud summer. A series of intense and more superficial meetings with our main and supporting characters should bring us closer to paradise. Our protagonists are dreaming of past times when life was better and fantasize how life could be, both their fantasies and realities are depicted next to each other in the film. All of them are looking for ways to free themselves from reality, literally or figuratively; one person gets completely sloshed in order to forget all his misery for a moment, others try to perform superhuman physical efforts (flying or anthill sitting) to alight them above themselves.
  Darkness and depression are fought with a light therapy lamp while music and dancing divert from daily life. The story starts in a deep depression and finishes with a flight upwards, that unfortunately fails. The end of the film falls on the longest day of the year. The folk artist tries to fly in vain, while the number of suicides increases because spring has started.
- Partners & financing
- Dutch Film Fund
  Rotterdam Film Fund
  Thuiskopie Fonds
  Flanders Audiovisual Fund
- Beginning of shooting
- Feb 01, 2008