We're normally different

"I know what I want." These are the words of a self-assured woman, who happens to have learning difficulties. She wants to fall in love, get married and have children, just like other people, but at the same time, she is painfully aware of how impossible some of her dreams and desires are. In We're Normally Different, four actors with learning difficulties express their emotions. In the face of their daily routine - doing laundry, making phone calls, shaving, withdrawing money, vacuuming to music and eating a herring at the local fishmonger - their lives appear just as normal as they are different. One wants to be a cameraman, and learn to read and write, another wants to take public transportation and a third is looking for a boyfriend.
With an incredible intimacy and exquisite cinematography, director Susanne Engels transports the viewer into their recognizable, but also surprising emotional life and allows an insider's perspective on a community often viewed from a discreet distance. In We're Normally Different, she has created a warm, poetic and touching documentary that penetrates a world in which boundaries between play and reality are fading and dreams and desires take centre stage.