Josefin & Florin   SWEDEN

BEST PROGRAMME ABOUT CULTURAL DIVERSITY 2020 TV NON FICTION

Author: Ellen Fiske & Joanna Karlberg
Director: Ellen Fiske & Joanna Karlberg
Produced by: Anna Weitz
Broadcast by: SVT2

After meeting outside the local grocery store, 22-year-old Romanian street beggar Florin and 38-year-old Swedish single mother Josefin get married. Despite the many cultural differences dividing them, they share a deep longing for love and a better life. Moving into a house in a Swedish village, they create a norm-beating life complete with chickens, pigs and a scrapyard. Florin’s friends and family often visit from back home, begging in the town center, and Josefin and Florin’s home is soon referred to by the locals as Little Romania. Florin studies Swedish and looks for work, but as the pressure from his family to send home money mounts, the relationship and their hopes for the future are put to the test. Filmmakers Ellen Fiske and Joanna Karlberg follow Josefin and Florin over the course of 2.5 years, capturing the emotional ups and downs of their love affair. The resulting 75 minutes offer an intimate portrayal of the beautiful – and challenging – power of love.

Jury laudatio:
When the extremes meet. An outstanding documentary, filmed over an exceptional period of 2,5 years, about two people falling in love with each other, despite their totally different backgrounds. The film comes  so incredibly close to the main characters, following the ups and downs in their amorous existence, that it often feels like watching fiction. It’s a story about poverty, about love, but above all about the power of diversity in optima forma. It changes the viewer’s unconscious bias and perspective about homeless people and it shows  how people can be different yet similar in an elegant and subtle way.