CONTENT:

In downtown Copenhagen in the Vesterbro district many women who have arrived from Greenland end up in a miserable situation, homeless and drinking heavily. Many only survive for a few years. And almost no one ever returns to Greenland.

The film follows a group of women who are ready to talk openly about their personal backgrounds, why they left Greenland, why they ended up as drunkards and how they survive today. One strong person, Rosine Berthels, recently stopped drinking after 25 years and now spends her time as a social worker, helping the drinkers to come out of their alcoholism. In the end of the film she tells about her approaching return to Greenland.

The film is not a traditional social documentary. It is created by the actress, singer and dancer Laila Hansen, herself a native of Greenland, and thus it has become a musically poetic narration, filled with love and tenderness for the women who appear in the film, so we end up really liking them. They are a group of women with an inner core of survival energy, defying their miserable life situation.

The language of the film being Greenlandic and the structure of the story with songs and lyrics so typical of Greenland matched with modern digitized music creates an experience totally different from what we are used to from television.

Thoughts about the film

by Laila Hansen, director

Escaping to another country in order to live in total anonymity, driven by great emotional pain, agony and burdens too heavy to bear. Escaping from a community that demands more of you than your mind can hold. Escaping from a country trying to find its identity, and enduring social problems, big beyond comprehension.

In a country so beautiful and pure you give up the struggle for life, a struggle that entails embracing one's own life, being part of daily life and giving one's children a decent life.

Instead spending one's time and efforts sitting on a bench and enjoying your beer and later touring the bars. This is what many women from Greenland have chosen to do, thus exposing themselves to a high rate of mortality and self-destruction.

The film INUK WOMAN CITY BLUES dives into the district of Vesterbro in Copenhagen, where many of these women end their days. We visit their universe through poems and music, and hear them talk about their lives. Not in a factual way, more from a philosophical perspective.