Denmark 2021, 43/75 min,
A Meta Film Production
by Jens Loftager

There is a Border in my Backyard

A warm-hearted tale of a small border community who suddenly finds themselves on one of the scalding political stages of Western Europe today. And all because wild hogs don’t understand the meaning of a border.

One morning Ruth, Thorsten, Jakob and Henrik awake to a strange sight: a tall green metal fence has been mounted in their backyards. It is on the crossing to a neighboring farm, separating a main house from its farmstead, and even a mailbox from its front door. The fence rams a pole straight through a grave of a beloved dead service dog who was safely resting on its owner's property. Everyday life is turned inside out and upside down and into an absurd tragi-comic experience for these down-to-earth and friendly originals, who live in a radius of 10 km from each other. They suddenly experience firsthand in each their own way what arbitrary transnational border policies can mean on a very real, very local scale. Together with the locals, the film raises questions about the nature of a border and what it means to be "a border person", and it explores how past and presence quite naturally interweave when you live your run-of-the-mill life on top of a historical and political hot potato of a border.

CPH:DOX (World Premiere)