In the Presence of a Clown (Larmar och gör sig till)

Rosy-cheeked, 54-year-old Carl Åkerblom is a patient in the psychiatric hospital in 1925. An eccentric inventor, Carl was hospitalised after attempting to kill his fiancée, Pauline Thibault. He is obsessed with Franz Schubert and speculates for his psychiatrist how the great composer must have felt when he first discovered he was dying of syphilis. After a number of real and imagined conversations, including a nightmarish visitation by a mysterious white clown named Rigmor, Carl dreams up a film project to be undertaken with another patient, Professor Osvald Vogler. They will make the world’s first living talkie, with actors behind the screen speaking the film’s dialogue in synchronisation with its visual images.