Synopsis
When eleven year old Maria loses her little brother PeeWee to cancer, her entire world appears to disintegrate. Her mother is traumatized by the death, retreating into a deep depression. Her father struggles with his own grief and his attempts to keep the family emotionally afloat. As Maria is a child, she misinterprets her mother's melancholy to mean that she no longer loves Maria now that PeeWee is gone, holding this lonely secret in her heart.Thinking it might lift her spirits, Maria's father sends Maria to visit her grandparents for summer holiday. He wants to shield her from her mother's worsening depression. While at her grandparents, the withdrawn Maria meets Jacob, also an eleven year old but with a completely different attitude about life and loss.
Jacob is an outgoing, adventurous, wisecracking latch-key kid with wisdom way beyond his tender years. Through their budding friendship, he pulls Maria out of her shell and enables her to find the strength and the courage to reach out to her mother so they can mourn and heal together.
Touching and heartwarming, ONLY CLOUDS MOVE THE STARS is based an the award-winning Norwegian novel by the film's director, Torun Lian. In 1998, the film won both the Grand Prize for Best Feature Film and the Nordic Film Institute's Award for Best Film for Children and Young People at the Lübeck Nordic Film Days in Germany. The film also received an honorable mention from the Church Jury at Lübeck. At the 1998 Nordic Children's Film Festival in Reykjavik, Iceland, ONLY CLOUDS MOVE THE STARS was awarded the Grand Prize for Best Feature Film. The film is also the official Norwegian entry for Best Foreign Language Film for the 1998 Academy Awards®.
