Long, Live, Love

Rosemarie, age 15, has already survived cancer twice. It has given her a forceful character and a strong will. Now that she’s recovered, she wants to get on with life—with school, friends, love, parties. But Rosemarie isn’t alone in dealing with trauma. Her young mother has to learn to handle an adolescent daughter, while she has yet to come to terms with the fear of losing her child.

The result is a search to establish a new relationship. How do you support a family member with a serious illness? And how do you respond when she has to reinvent herself? Sine Skibsholt’s debut film Who We Were (IDFA, 2016) confronted the viewer with the devastating consequences of medical trauma for a marriage. Long, Live, Love shows the effect on the relationship of unconditional love between parent and child.

The teenager finds it hard to understand her mother’s struggle. Meandering between hospital scenes and sneaked cigarettes on the fire escape, a coming-of-age drama unfolds in which we see Rosemarie growing like her new hair: steadily, but also wild and unstoppable.