Kevlar Soul

Maria Eriksson-Hecht’s feature film debut is a harrowing and emotionally charged portrayal of two brothers in a world of adults who fail them.

Brothers Alex and Robin live in miserable conditions with their violent and severely alcoholic father (Torkel Petersson). In an effort to make life bearable, Alex tries to keep his father in a good mood while taking on a parental role for his younger brother, who is aggressive and unruly. When Alex falls for Ines and travels with her to Berlin, the brothers begin to drift apart, and disaster soon becomes inevitable. A finely drawn portrait of brotherhood where an older sibling is forced to step into the shoes of absent parents far too soon, in a genre that echoes the cinematic worlds of Andrea Arnold and the Dardenne brothers.