Thelma

Having just enrolled at a university in Oslo against her stern parents' will, the sheltered Biology freshman and devout Christian, Thelma, leaves for the first time the isolated Norwegian countryside, to start a new life away from home. Tangibly lonely, a casual conversation and one unexpected friendship with the beautiful fellow student, Anja, will broaden Thelma's hazy horizons; however, as the glacially alluring misfit wrestles with an onslaught of novel feelings, little by little, an unprecedented psychosomatic manifestation of repressed emotions start to take over. Indeed, a mystery cloaks soft-spoken Thelma's past, and the more she struggles to renounce her nebulous desire, the more violent becomes her quivering awakening. Can Thelma unearth a denied truth behind the stinging temptation? —Nick Riganas