Still from the film "Always Amber". Two shot. Clean white tiles, two young people with piercing and colorful hairstyles sit in a foamy bathtub, looking at each other with love.

Always Amber

Origins and echoes
Directors: Lia Hietala and Hannah Reinikainen
Sweden, 2020, 75 minutes, documentary

Seventeen-year-old Amber and her best friend Sebastian refuse to let society label their gender. Moving through a spectrum of fluid identities, they dream together, party together, and form friendships with like-minded people. The queer teenagers inhabit an open and loving world far away from the judging eyes of others, in which everything seems possible. But when Amber falls in love with Charlie, their utopian world is shaken to its core. Trust issues begin to emerge, and in the midst of it all, Amber has to face going through their transition alone.

Film screening dates: 23.09.2021 — 26.09.2021
Photo of the director of the film "Always Amber"
Director
Lia Hietala was born 1993 in Stockholm, Sweden. Hietala has her main base in Stockholm but her first short film “If I Say No” (2016) is financed and takes place in Norway. The film awarded her the Nordnorsk Film Center’s scholarship Springbett, which resulted in her second short film “My Gay Sister” (2017). The film became very successful and won the world’s most prestigious queer film prize: The Teddy Award for best short film, at the Berlin International Film Festival. Hietala continues to work with both fiction and documentary and is currently studying for a bachelor’s in fine arts at The University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm. Always Amber is her first feature film.

Selected filmography: Always Amber (2020), My Gay Sister (2017), If I Say No (2016)
Photo of the director of the film "Always Amber"
Director
Hannah Reinikainen was born 1992 in Stockholm, Sweden. She has been studying journalism at the University of Stockholm and documentary filmmaking at Biskops-Arnö. Since her studies she has been working at the production company Story, for example as a director’s assistant and editor on “Shapeshifters” (2017) by Sophie Vuković. She has previously directed two short films “Nybohovsbacken'' (2016) and “She only beat the one she loves” (2017). “Always Amber'' is her first feature film.

Selected filmography: Always Amber (2020), She only beat the one she loves (2017), Nybohovsbacken (2016)