SYNOPSIS

Kaisa is the shop manager of a floating warehouse-container in the Baltic Sea. She and her employees fill the shelves every day with the customers’ dreams of escapism: alcohol, cigarettes and candies. When day shifts to night, the container turns into their personal paradise where love comes just as another duty-free good. But one day the tunnel between Germany and Denmark is finished and puts the existence of their universe of love at risk. Will Kaisa manage to maintain it? Or was it all an illusion after all?

INTENTION

For me, the idea for Duty Free started with the thought of a mysterious thing called unconditional love. Is it an escapist's dream of love without strings attached, safe and easy relationships, and no lack and fear of commitment to others? Or is it real?

In the floating duty-free container in Northern Germany, which I grew up next to and has always fascinated me, I have found the perfect place to create this universe on trial with a female main character. An almost goddess at the end of the world, who wants to give everything of herself, where life has not really got much to offer and people accept what they are given without expectations.

I want to tell a poetic and visually enthralling story that explores the issue knowing there are no right or final answers. Told as a mysterious and dark tale with an enchanting otherworldly soundscape, set in a contrastingly bleak and realistic landscape, Duty Free portrays a woman, entangled between turmoil and desire, who sets out on a mission to shape and control life and in the end creates chaos.