Experiencing Interruptions?

a stranger in the world

A filmmaker and his son with autism. A composer and his musical work inspired by the slow processes of dripstone caves. Two parallel love stories.

Composer Magnar Åm wanders through a stalactite cave deep underground to compose a musical work. Once a week, one drop falls from the stalactite at the top onto the stalagmite at the bottom. Slowly, perhaps over millions of years, they grow together. From this time perspective, human life is mercifully short – but maybe you can still see life in the drop?

Director Sturla Pilskog finds it difficult to understand the reality in which his son, who has autism, lives and acts. Through fragmented memories of his son’s challenged sensory life, he tries to find some kind of pattern. With the composer as a philosophical guide, the director tries to find a way to the center of the drop and in many ways find harmony in life.

In the encounter with the composer’s sensory world and his son’s autism, Pilskog has created a touching and artistic documentary – or rather, a journey of natural philosophy – about distance and closeness between people.

  • Sturla Pilskog
    Director
    Winter's Yearning
  • Sturla Pilskog
    Producer
    Winter's Yearning
  • Magnar Åm
    Key Cast
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    ein er ei eiga eining
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Experimental, Short
  • Runtime:
    29 minutes 50 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    March 20, 2025
  • Country of Origin:
    Norway
  • Country of Filming:
    Denmark, Italy, Norway
  • Language:
    Norwegian
  • Shooting Format:
    RED + HD
  • Aspect Ratio:
    1.85
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Cph:Dox
    Copenhagen
    Denmark
    March 20, 2025
    Official selection
Director Biography - Sturla Pilskog

Winter's Yearning, 77" (2019)
Ice Handcape, 11" (2014)
Urban Hunters, 52" (2011)

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

My son has autism.

At one point, when a lot of things were tough for him,

he started to walk around and around in circles in our living room.

It was a repetitive pattern.

More or less at the same time I visited Copenhagen Zoo.

Here I had a special meeting with the Polar bear.

Why? Because he was doing the same movements as my son.

Walking around and around in circles. The Polar Bear was trapped, and he looked stressed.

And I remember thinking that the Polar bear did not belong in the city.

I did some research when I came home,

and learned that the Polar Bear made these walk to unstress himself.

By doing these repetitive movements he makes great amounts of endorphins that works pain reliving, and it makes him feel better.

So, I began to think.

Could it be the same thing my son was doing in our living room?

Trying to unstress himself?

And did my son move like this because he, maybe just like the Polar Bear, felt trapped?

I know where the Polar Bear belong in this world.

But then I asked myself, where do my son belong?

Around this time another thing happened.

I got to know a man that in all possible ways knew where he belonged.

That was the Norwegian composer Magnar Åm.

He loves to go out in nature, or go into buildings, like old factories, and sing, sometimes scream, to get some answers.

The answers he calls love, or touch of love.

And with this he can totally be himself, and he can make music in his own way.

In my meeting with Magnar, I too felt I could get some answers.

Not necessarily where my son belongs,

but maybe rather where I belong in my approach to my son and his autistic challenges.

In other words how to understand and get closer to a stranger in the world.