WILDLAND New Auteurs

USA Premiere

Following the film, AFI FEST Senior Programmer Claudia Puig leads a conversation between filmmaker Jeanette Nordahl and actor Sandra Guldberg Kampp .

Families come in all shapes, sizes and career inclinations. After her mother dies suddenly in a car accident, introverted 17-year-old Ida (Sandra Guldberg Kampp) is welcomed with open arms by her overbearing aunt and druggy grown cousins, who live together in the Danish countryside. Unfortunately for Ida, her aunt is the head of a criminal debt collection enterprise overseeing her trio of gangster sons. Sidse Babett Knudsen plays Ida’s aunt with a mesmerizing blend of malevolent and maternal. Part coming-of-age tale, part dysfunctional family drama, part social realism, this absorbing and stylish gangster thriller is seen from the tomboyish Ida’s perspective. Told with visual panache and marked by convincing performances, WILDLAND explores the destructive legacy of criminality and the notion of familial emotional debt. –Claudia Puig