Synopsis
Life Overtakes Me (2019) is a short documentary you can watch online on iFILM. In forty minutes it lays out a Swedish phenomenon that sounds impossible: refugee children sinking into a sleep that can last for years.
Families flee war and violence, reach Sweden, and then the threat of deportation drags the fear back. In response, some of their children slip into what local doctors call Resignation Syndrome. The child stops speaking, eating, moving, responding, and withdraws somewhere deep inside for months on end. The camera stays close to three families whose parents feed motionless kids through a tube and wait for the day they wake.
Kristine Samuelson and John Haptas shoot without narration or musical cues, letting the silence do the work, and it is far heavier than words. The film went on to a nomination among the Oscar documentary shorts. Hard to sit through, but worth it. Stream Life Overtakes Me (2019) online on iFILM.
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