Claes

The protagonist of the documentary by young Swedish director Martina Carlstedt is pensioner Claes Swandberg, whose greatest wish is to finally make it to the nearby cinema. What if it rains? What if his sweater doesn’t match the shirt he is wearing? Probably better to stay in the safety of his own home and switch on the telly. In the total isolation of his solitary life, and out of an entirely unfounded fear of stepping outside his flat, Claes has turned his tidy home into a prison. With extreme sensitivity, this minimalistic film portrait captures Claes’s life and demonstrates just what loneliness can do to a person. (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)