Nordic Film Series features true story about woman empowered through art

HANCOCK — The true story of a woman who survives an abusive relationship through the power of photography is the March feature presentation of the Finnish American Heritage Center’s Nordic Film Series.

Showing March 14 at 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. at the Heritage Center, “Everlasting Moments” is a film set in the early 1900s in Sweden, where a young working-class woman wins a camera in a lottery. The camera grants her the eyes to view the world, and empowers her over several decades to raise and nurture her family of six children and an alcoholic, womanizing and sometimes violent, although ultimately loving, husband.

Famed critic Roger Ebert offered this review: “Rarely is there a film that evokes our sympathy more deeply than ‘Everlasting Moments.’ It is a great story of love and hope, told tenderly and without any great striving for effect.”

The film, which was Sweden’s Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Film in 2009, is two hours and 10 minutes long, and is in Swedish with English subtitles. The showings are open to the public; donations to support the film series are appreciated.