Fortuna – Episode 1

Abraham is the son of a conservative ophthalmologist and a free-spirited mother. He is friends with Marius, whose single mother is close-drawn. The two go to secondary school in a small city on Norway’s west coast, where Marius becomes a target for teachers who abuse their power. Against the will of his father, but with the encouragement of his mother, Abraham has his friend’s back. Marius is dependent on a scholarship and to keep it, he needs to get good grades. When he fails Latin, he falls ill with encephalitis … Based on a book trilogy by Alexander Kielland. In the first book, "Poison", the writer criticises authoritarian education, which he denounces as "poisoning" the young. Thomas Mann also criticised coercion and the pressure of exams in the school episode in "Buddenbrooks". It was based on his own experiences at Lübeck’s Katharineum school and leitmotifs taken from Kielland’s novel. – The screening will be introduced with a lecture about Thomas Mann as an academic "underachiever" and followed by a reading from the school chapter of "Buddenbrooks".