Nordisk Panorama 2025: Teenage Life Interrupted (dir. Åse Svenheim Drivenes) | Review
Teenage Life Interrupted is a plea for a more humane kind of medicine — one grounded in empathy, care, and genuine listening.
At the University Hospital of North Norway in Tromsø, a special unit treats young patients whom the conventional medical system has failed to heal. Defying the growing pressure for profitability that pervades healthcare worldwide, and stepping away from strictly traditional approaches, doctors Hans Petter and Elin take the time to listen to these young people and understand their stories, seeking to uncover psychological traumas that may lie at the root of their physical suffering. In Teenage Life Interrupted (Uten synlige tegn), Norwegian filmmaker Åse Svenheim Drivenes offers a months-long immersion alongside them as they care for four patients — Margrete, Julie, Thea, and Sofie.
The film unfolds through sequences of direct cinema, mostly shot indoors, within the intimacy of the consulting room. Close-ups on the protagonists highlight the emotional charge of these encounters between doctors and patients — often accompanied by their parents — and illuminate a medical practice striving to restore the human element at the heart of care.
This theme has often been explored in cinema, as in Alexe Poukine’s Who Cares?, yet Åse Svenheim Drivenes emphasizes here that caregivers are, above all, human beings — endowed with sensitivity and compassion that they exercise daily. The director intersperses the film with moments focused on the two doctors, capturing their reflections and doubts, even filming them within the intimacy of their homes. When conventional methods offer no answers, it is by deepening their relationships with patients that they manage to truly understand and help them.
In conclusion, Teenage Life Interrupted is a touching and comforting film that offers an alternative perspective on the contemporary hospital world.
The film celebrated its world premiere at the Tromsø International Film Festival in 2025, before being presented at CPH:DOX and, among others, Nordisk Panorama later this year.
