Johannes was six years old when he fell victim to his father’s physical violence for the first time, a violence that continued for ten years, while his mother, church and friends looked the other way. At the age of seventeen Johannes was banished from the sect Jehovah’s Witness because he came forward as a homosexual and told the council of “the elder” about his father’s abuse. In Oslo he finds freedom and the life he was longing for, a life that turns out to be hard and merciless. This is a story about how social control in religious sects can break a person and scar them for life, but it is also about light, hope and a courageous man who manages to raise himself up again and again, and not least about a wise and loving grandmother who rescued a beaten and broken boy from the claws of fundamentalism. To my grandmother Karen
text and actor: Sven Henriksen, director: Anne E. Kokkin, music: Sissel Brean
text-based, Norwegian