Dreams (Sex Love)

Directed by Dag Johan Haugerud
Norway
2024
110 mins

Synopsis

Winner, Golden Bear, Berlinale 2025. Dag Johan Haugerud (Sex, SFF 2024) crafts a potent, nuanced examination of a teenage girl’s forbidden crush and the creative awakening it triggers.

Aged 17, Johanne (Ella Øverbye) has found her first true love. Unfortunately, it’s her high school teacher, Johanna (Selome Emnetu). The similarity of their names makes this crush feel like fate, but the teenager – not so naive – knows that this student-teacher fantasy should never come to pass. Seeking release from her obsession, she pours her feelings into writing. A confessional Johanne then shares her erotic journal with her mother (Ane Dahl Torp, Charter, SFF 2020) and grandma, a writer herself. Both declare it a literary masterpiece, and implore her to publish it – though it also ignites an ethical debate between them. Haugerud closes out his lauded thematic trilogy of standalone relationship studies with aplomb.

Limited seats are available for patrons requiring access for wheelchairs, low vision and hearing loop. Please contact our ticketing team directly on 1300 733 733 or tickets@sff.org.au to complete your booking.

An astonishingly poised, easily bruised performance by Øverbye keeps all possibilities afloat behind the character’s soft, inquisitive mien.
Guy Lodge, Variety

Tickets

Wed 4 June 2025, 7:15pm
Art Gallery of New South Wales
WheelchairSubtitledAssisted Listening
Sun 8 June 2025, 6:30pm
Palace Norton Street - Cinema 3
WheelchairSubtitledAssisted Listening
Sun 15 June 2025, 1pm
Dendy Newtown - Cinema 1
WheelchairSubtitledAssisted Listening
  • Program Strand
  • Original Title
    DRØMMER
  • Year
    2024
  • Classification
    Unclassified 18+
  • Country
    Norway
  • Language
    In Norwegian with English subtitles
  • Director
    Dag Johan Haugerud
  • Producer
    Yngve Sæther, Hege Hauff Hvattum
  • Cast
    Ella Øverbye, Selome Emnetu, Ane Dahl Torp
  • Screenwriter
    Dag Johan Haugerud
  • Cinematographer
    Cecilie Semec
  • Editor
    Jens Christian Fodstad
  • Genre
  • Premiere
    Australian Premiere
  • Company Credits
    Australian Distributor: Vendetta Films
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Sydney Film Festival acknowledges Australia’s First Nations People as the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the land, and pay respect to the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, upon whose Country SFF is based.

We honour the storytelling and culture of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities across Australia.

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