Thomas Bek

A treatise of the human animal no. 38: HEARTACHE is an absurd depiction of the human being and its eternal tendency to have its heart broken. In eight standalone chapters, we meet the patients at the now closed Sanatorium for Heartache, in their assiduous attempt to cure themselves of this terrible disease. Meanwhile, on Antarctica, we join the penguin Edgar on an epic journey, as he traverses snowy plains and stormy mountains in an attempt to once again be reunited with the love of his life.

Ali, a lonely, elderly immigrant, seeks out new relations in a public bathhouse. But, with limited knowledge about the local sauna rules, making a good impression can be harder than first expected.

Acclaimed theater director Erik Werner is setting up a stage play dramatizing memories from his marriage to his wife Juliane who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. During the process Erik discovers that he and Juliane have had vastly different experiences of their shared life together. Experiences that will make Erik see his marriage in a new light.

22-year-old Jeppe is suffering from autism and works in a camping shop in his birth town Silkeborg. Everything seems chaos when a colleague suddenly decides to change all the systems in the shop. But when the city girl Mynthe and her two girlfriends check into the camping site, Jeppe cannot concentrate on anything else but the fascination of this strange girl. Mynthe is on vacation - away from her mother and an unstable life. When she meets Jeppe at a summer party, she somehow finds the stability she has longed for. They fall in love with each other's differences with ties so close that Jeppe begins to fear the day the holiday is over and Mynthe has to go back to Copenhagen. Keeping the love between the two youngsters seems impossible - until Jeppe realizes that Mynthe may need him more than he needs her.

Sammi, Henrik, Miriam, and Gert are prison officers and colleagues in an old, worn-down Danish prison. Their work environment is raw and hostile, and their respective lives outside the prison walls are filled with conflict, secrets, and loneliness for very different reasons. Secrets, that will soon resurface and have great consequences not only for the four prisoners, but for everyone inside and outside the walls.