Liten Ida (1981)

Genres - Drama  |   Run Time - 77 min.  |   Countries - Norway, Sweden  |  
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Synopsis by Eleanor Mannikka

This film is an adaptation of scriptwriter Marit Paulsen's memories of an agonizing childhood, partially spent suffering the verbal abuse of other children and adults because her mother had an affair with a soldier belonging to the German occupying forces in Norway. Paulsen's memories are reworked as the experiences of the little girl Ida (Sunniva Lindeklejv). Unable to leave the small northern village where she and her mother (Lisa Fjeldstad) lived, and unable to follow her older sister to Germany or her brother to work on a ship, Ida had to remain alone to face the jeers of other children and the snide remarks of the adults, while her mother was busy as a cook at the POW camp for Russians. In fact, she herself beat Ida when her own suffering was more than she could bear. Fortunately, Ida was sent to live with a kind farming family for some period of time and that small respite from her ordeal helped to heal her spirits and reinforce her own self-respect. Unfortunately, she had to return to the village on D-Day to face the unabated hatred of the villagers again -- calling upon reserves at the tender age of seven that few would have had available.

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Keywords

abuse, childhood, extramarital-affair, mother, Nazism, occupation [military], soldier, victim, war-atrocities