For You Naked (För dig naken)

An untraditional and intimate love story between one of Scandinavia’s most highly regarded modern painters and a young Brazilian dancer. Two men with a dark past desperately searching for true love. They get in touch on Skype and can´t communicate in any language, but they decide to meet and find out if they can fall in love. This is the beginning of an unpredictable love story, humorous and warm but with dark undertones of domination and control. About the courage it takes to drop your defenses and stand naked and vulnerable in front of the other. And how hard it can be to fall in love again after years of alcoholism, drug abuse and a broken heart. To show even your most dark parts and sometimes be brutally honest about your doubts and fear. We closely follow their struggle for a happy existence and their search for a life where someone loves you – regardless of how vastly difficult it can be to love one self.

Lars Lerin is known as a master among nordic watercolor painters. He is my godfather. He grew up in Sunnemo, a small town in northern Värmland. He knew he was a homosexual very early on. In the 1970s he met my parents when they had just moved to a Värmland in the forest, with bees, chickens and a plot of land to grow vegetables on. For the first time Lars could openly speak with them about his sexuality. He drank and took pills. As a kid I remember how he was always in a daze, nervous and absent. But at the same time he was successful (magical) as an artist. I can’t say I ever fully understood him. What affected me was his lack of self-­‐love coupled with his desperate need to be loved. My attraction to this profound human contradiction has been one of the driving forces for me, in making this film.

Join Sara Broos in a Q & A after the film.

Awards:

2012  Dragon Award for Best Swedish documentary, Gothenburg International Film Festival