Blood Ties

Blood Ties is about a dysfunctional family who, despite massive social problems, share a sense of unity and love for each other. It is a story about children, who are forcibly removed from home when they are young, and who return as teenagers to parents who are still exactly the same as they always were.

Svend has 16 children, the four youngest with Gitte, who he is now divorcing after a long turbulent marriage. This drastic change in the family raises a series of questions – especially for the youngest daughter Christina, who is about to enter adulthood without remembering much from her childhood at all. To help his daughter Svend requests full access to municipality files on his family. He is determined to prove once and for all that the forcible removal of his children was a mistake. Together with Christina and her sister, Michelle, Svend digs his way into a past that no one seems to recall much of – and the three of them embark on a journey, that is anything but pretty.

It is a film about the consequences of growing up at the very bottom of society, exploring the complex structures of the concept of family, where neglect and violence goes hand in hand with a sense of unity and love.