Paradise is Burning
By Charlotte Stace
As part of the D’A Film Festival, Mika Gustafson’s Paradise is Burning (2023) will be screened at Cines Aribau. Starring Bianca Delbravo, Dilvin Asaad, Safira Mossberg, Ida Engvoll, Mitja Sirén and Marta Oldenburg, this is one of the festival’s must-see films this year.
It follows the lives of three young sisters - Laura, Mira and Steffi - who live in a working-class area of Sweden. The girls get by on their own, left to their own devices by an absent mother. With summer on the way and no parents around, life is wild and carefree, vivacious and anarchic. But when social services call a meeting, Laura has to find someone to impersonate their mother, or the girls will be taken into foster care and separated.
Heart-wrenching, cruel and awe-inspiring, the film premiered in the Orizzonti section at the 80th Venice International Film Festival where Gustafson was awarded best director. Don’t miss it on the big screen.