Documentary
2025 Norway
52 minutes
Language: Norwegian
Subtitles: English
Producer: Morten Willoch Wærø
Produced by Kubrix, Erfaringssentrum (the national interest group for peer support workers) and Rådet for psykisk helse (The Council for Mental Health)
Synopsis
In this documentary, we meet four of the approximately 6,500 people who become bereaved by suicide every single year in Norway. The impact of a loved one’s suicide changes lives and also significantly increases the risk that the bereaved will die by suicide.
We meet the young father who lost his wife a few months after she gave birth to their second child. Then there is the mother of a young man who describes the shock when her son suddenly ended it all, without a single word that something was wrong. A best friend recounts how his entire future was turned upside down, but that the support system focused exclusively on the affected family. A young lady recounts how she felt after her father took his own life, making her feel abandoned and suicidal. Also sitting around the table is a man who planned his own suicide but managed to accept help when he shared his despair with his primary care physician.
Each in their own way, they struggle with anger, grief, and wonder if they can find joy and purpose in life again. And could they actually have done something to prevent the death? From their different perspectives, they help each other understand what the person who took their own life might have been thinking, and why others in the network have since distanced themselves. The conversation among the participants is thought-provoking, healing, and helpful on a topic that affects so many, yet is so painful that we’d rather avoid it. We shouldn’t do that, which is why this film is worth watching.