Frames of Alicia

Alicia has just arrived in Copenhagen from Sweden, ostensibly to make it big in the vibrant music industry of Denmark’s capital, but there seems more to her than just dreams of fame and fortune – a loneliness she tries to overcome as she tries to find her grounding in this foreign city. She does not know anybody and did not arrange a place to stay before her arrival, which leaves her to cold-call musicians and vulnerable to unsavoury elements. But while her goals seem somewhat unclear and ill-defined, her deep-rooted sadness hints at something she yearns to escape – leaving her stuck in the limbo between past and future more widely known as the present.

Directed unobtrusively by Adam Benjamin Mikkelsen, »Frames of Alicia« is a deeply poetic and sometimes unsettlingly harsh film about a young woman whose sensitive nature and helplessness are sharply at odds with her will to make it on her own. Filmed guerilla-style with a crew of two (with the director also handling the sound), it is a fascinating collection of moments in time, with the marvelous Tuva Alfredsson as the titular character whose every look or gesture tells a story of its own.