Anna Holmlund: Jag vill åka hem

Below Surface

BELOW SURFACE reveals the extraordinary power of community through an unlikely subject: a YMCA Aquafit class. The documentary gathers numerous moving stories of a multicultural and multi-generational Aquafit class to demonstrate how kindness and caring for others, combined with exercise, can be an antidote for grief, stress, and physical illness. The heartwarming honesty of the participants is a reminder of the power we all have to support one another.

Sisyphus

Sisyphus is a journey through the rehabilitation of addictions in Mexico. In the absence of a public infrastructure to combat this problem, the annexes are the alternative that addicts themselves have created. The annexes are unofficial rehabilitation centers in which a method of rehabilitation thought apart from medicine or professional therapy is offered.

The Quiet One

A documentary account of the rehabilitation at the Wiltwyck School of an emotionally disturbed black boy who is unwanted, misunderstood, and inwardly tortured.

Amy

A documentary on the life of Amy Winehouse, the immensely talented yet doomed songstress. We see her from her teen years, where she already showed her singing abilities, to her finding success and then her downward spiral into alcoholism and drugs.

Roxana

Roxana follows a young mother’s return to the juvenile detention center she was once incarcerated in, now as a trained somatic therapist. Through an intimate look into the lives of incarcerated youth, we will see the consequences of childhood trauma.

Rara Avis

On a sailboat in the middle of the Ocean, five teenagers in rehabilitation are travelling with adults of different ages and backgrounds. Off unknown coastlines, the boat’s space becomes a huis-clos in which everyone faces their own difficulties, the challenge of living together and also the manoeuvres of sailing, the Ocean and its turmoil—until the arrival on land.

Breaking the Cycle

The warden of Halden, Norway's most humane prison, tours the U.S. prison system to urge a new approach emphasizing rehabilitation.

Roadz of Life

A traumatic injury and disability, the filmmaker is also the subject, trying to find his way out of a coma like state. Searching for answers, he begins to interview strangers also experiencing extreme life circumstances.

Head Games

Former football player and wrestler Chris Nowinski's quest to publicize recent findings about the often dire consequences of head concussions sustained by athletes in contact sports — injuries that have previously been considered momentary setbacks and ignored in the name of toughness and dedication to the team.

Sister Hearts

Maryam Henderson-Uloho spent thirteen years in prison in Louisiana, seven in solitary confinement. After her release she struggled to find housing or employment. She began selling secondhand goods out of a suitcase on a street corner in New Orleans. In just three years, she grew her business to a brick-and-mortar thrift store—one that also provides housing and employment for other formerly-incarcerated women. She calls those women—and her store—Sister Hearts.

Diary of a Head Injury

A bleed on the brain and concussion inspire a crash victim to confront the heartbreak, trauma and confusion of losing connection with the only person they ever really knew.

The Giant Panda

Since 2003, nine giant pandas from China's Wolong Nature Reserve have been reintroduced into the bamboo forest of the Qinling Mountains. Born in the breeding and research station of the reserve, they did not have close contact with humans before their relocation to the natural environment. For three years, a team of scientists followed one of them, from its birth to the discovery of its new environment.

Dancing in A-Yard

In prisons ruled by toxic masculinity, dancing is an absolute taboo. But at Lancaster’s A-Yard, near Los Angeles, a group of young men, willing to take a chance to be mocked in the yard, start a dance class led by French choreographer Dimitri Chamblas. This class quickly becomes an intoxicating escape from their grim reality so they decide to create a dance show. In this exceptional context, the inmates engage with overwhelming sincerity, evoking their childhood, ganglife, the crimes, the prison, and their desire for transformation. Beyond damaged lives and a prison system on the edge of the abyss, DANCING IN A-YARD explores redemption and the capacity of human beings to reinvent themselves, when given a chance. And more importantly, how art and introspection can help see the light.

Forbryder på pension

My new friends from ward three

Frans Bromet ends up in the Reade rehabilitation clinic in Amsterdam after a brain haemorrhage. He soon picks up his camera and films his roommates and healthcare staff. Frans discovers how important intensive guidance is. But the bond with his fellow sufferers is also greater than expected. When he hears of upcoming budget cuts, his concerns grow about the future of the institution and therefore also about the rehabilitation process of the clients.

31.1

After facing several years of hardships, Gabriela, the director and protagonist of this short documentary, is involuntarily relocated by her family to a rehabilitation center for three months. During this time, she encounters a series of prohibitions that result in complete isolation from society, surrounded by individuals grappling with severe mental health issues. Four years after her release, she embarks on an introspective journey to definitively close that chapter of her life. This poignant documentary immerses us in Gabriela's courageous odyssey, offering an intimate look at her struggle for self-reconciliation and familial understanding. Through powerful imagery and sincere testimonials, the short film invites the audience to contemplate human resilience and the pursuit of forgiveness.

Dwars

Katelijne suffers a spinal cord injury in a boating accident. They refuse to accept life in a wheelchair. Katelijne does everything she can to regain control over her body and life and begins a long and complex rehabilitation process with perseverance.

Instant Trauma

Newly engaged average joe auto mechanic John Cameron experiences 'Instant Trauma' to his head at work when a falling car knocks him unconscious. When he wakes up, all memory of his past self has disappeared in favor of a new reality: he is the reincarnation of John Lennon.

Shakespeare Corrected: What's Past is Prologue

A documentary film by Millikin University graduate Katie Kocan '25, giving a behind-the-scenes look at the production of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" by the student organization Shakespeare Corrected at the Decatur Correctional Center in April 2025.