THE MYSTERY OF AGNES CECILIA

When Nora was five years old, she lost her parents in a car accident, but she was told that they had gone for a long trip. She was then raised by a foster family, and met their son , a boy of her own age. They became like brother and sister, and even more… Ten years later, Nora and her foster family move to an apartment in an old building. She starts to feel strange and somewhat mysterious sensations: at night, she hears footsteps that abruptly stop in front of her door, and the hands of the old clock suddenly start to turn backwards. Who tries to contact her? What does it want and why her?

In his films, Anders GRÖNROS always deals with themes related to life experiences, and tries here to explore a supernatural phenomenon: the border between life and death. To do so, he relied on a story written by Maria Gripe, author of books for children and teenagers, well known around the world (her works were translated in 28 languages), and multiple times awarded. “Agnes Cecilia” was published in 1981 and about 100.000 copies were printed in Sweden alone. THE MYSTERY OF AGNES CECILIA is the second feature of the Swedish director and, as soon as it was released, the national press unanimously acknowledged the aspects of this film, worthy of a masterpiece, and even compared GRÖNROS to SPIELBERG, HITCHCOCK, or TRUFFAUT. He received the Swedish Oscar, the GULDBAGGE, for Best Director in 1992. “Making a film about the unknown as if it is the reality, which means showing that each day of our life can actually contain more dimensions than those we can perceive through our five senses”: this is the statement and bet made by the Swedish director, remarkably helped by Gloria Tapia, the young actress playing the role of Nora.