Immediate Boarding

It’s the holidays and all Sweden’s children with divorced parents are packing their bags. Eleven-year-old Martin is off to his father Torkel in northern Sweden and Julia, who is the same age as Martin, is off to visit her mother Kicki in Malmö in the south of Sweden. Julia and Martin have never met before. Julia is already sitting waiting in the departure lounge at Arlanda Airport in Stockholm when Martin arrives. He is left to wait next to Julia. The two look at each other and the world stops. They realise that they look exactly alike.

Martin, who is usually an anxious and withdrawn boy, lets himself get drawn in by Julia’s enthusiasm and fearlessness. Among the souvenir shops and stressed travellers, they become friends. At one point they see themselves in a TV-screen. Julia takes Martin’s glasses and puts them on her herself. She takes off her dirty denim jacket and gives it to the neatly dressed Martin. Imagine… suddenly they have also swapped address labels.
Both children feel major relief at not heading where they are supposed to – Julia who tries to hide a great internal sadness behind a cocky façade and Martin who feels that he doesn’t fit in with his father’s family.