''Three Miles North of Molkom'' is a 2008 documentary film directed by Corinna Villari-McFarlane and Robert Cannan. It was
nominated in the Best British Documentary category for the British Independent Film Awards 2008.
It follows seven participants of the 2007
No Mind Festival
The No Mind Festival is an annual alternative festival that has taken place in Ängsbacka, Sweden each summer since 1997 and is sometimes referred to as Ängsbacka's Glastonbury. Its roots are drawn from the No Mind philosophy of Osho, the Indian ...
at
Ängsbacka
Ängsbacka is a course and festival center focused on personal development, yoga, Tantra, dance, meditation, spirituality and self-expression. It is located in Molkom, Sweden, and was started in 1996.
The center hosts an average of eight festiv ...
, a course center located in
Molkom,
Sweden. This yearly
New Age
New Age is a range of spiritual or religious practices and beliefs which rapidly grew in Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise definition difficult. Although many scholars consi ...
event lasts one or two weeks, has a thousand participants, and is claimed to be the largest
alternative
Alternative or alternate may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media
* Alternative (''Kamen Rider''), a character in the Japanese TV series ''Kamen Rider Ryuki''
* ''The Alternative'' (film), a 1978 Australian television film
* ''The Alternative ...
festival in Northern Europe.
The activities shown in the film include
tree hugging
The Chipko movement ( hi, chipko andolan, italic=yes, lit= reehugging movement) is a forest conservation movement in India.
The movement originated in 1973 at the Himalayan region of Uttarakhand (then part of Uttar Pradesh) and went on to beco ...
(each one choosing his own tree),
firewalking
Firewalking is the act of walking barefoot over a bed of hot embers or stones. It has been practiced by many people and cultures in many parts of the world, with the earliest known reference dating from Iron Age India . It is often used as a rite ...
,
nude swimming
Nude swimming is the practice of swimming without clothing, whether in natural bodies of water or in swimming pools. A colloquial term for nude swimming is '' skinny-dipping''.
In both British and American English, to swim means "to move throu ...
,
sweat lodge,
hugging
A hug is a form of endearment, universal in most human communities, in which two or more people put their arms around the neck, back, or waist of one another and hold each other closely. If more than two people are involved, it may be referred ...
,
Tantric sex
Tantric sex or sexual yoga refers to a wide range of practices carried on in Hindu and Buddhist tantra to exercise sexuality in a ritualized or yogic context, often associated with antinomian or impure elements, like consumption of alcohol, and ...
, singing, dancing, talks in "sharing circles". There is also an exercise in defending oneself against a physical attack using
psychic energy.
The portrayed participants are:
*Siddhartha, a Swedish harbor master, who says he feels like a king in his nice house, but also that he is lonely, and longs for a woman.
*Peter, who has come with his two sons; his wife did not come along.
*Mervi, an older, female former career counselor from Finland. She suffers from a lack of saliva, but some activities are so exciting that it is produced. In the psychic energy exercise, she is knocked over, and the instructor claims that she failed to defend herself with the energy.
*Ljus, an American
hippie, and a former
goatherd.
*
Regina Lund, a well-known singer/songwriter; she arrives one day later, because she had to sing at a wedding, and leaves earlier.
*Marit, a shy Norwegian woman. On one occasion she reveals her hidden fantasy of being a queen; at her request the others one by one bow to her.
*Nick, an Australian rugby coach who explains that he expected a different kind of festival; a female journalist friend suggested he attend while she would be there writing a story about the festival. He is very skeptical at first, describing the festival as a
cult, but evolves into an enthusiastic participant. He teaches the group some Australian expressions, pronounced in the Australian way, such as "
no worries
''No worries'' is an expression seen in English meaning "do not worry about that", "that's all right", "forget about it" or "sure thing". It is similar to the American English "'' no problem''". The phrase is widely used in Australian speech an ...
".
Production
''Three Miles North of Molkom'' is a low-budget film. Permission to film at the festival came only four weeks in advance. The crew consisted of the two directors and two camera men. Use is made of a
Fig Rig. While other groups at the festival are formed at random, this group consisted of people willing and accepted to be in the film. Six of the seven participants were selected during the first six hours of the festival. Nick initially did not care whether he was filmed or not, he just wanted to hang out with the crew because to him they were the closest thing to normality around him. Regina Lund, who had announced that she was interested, was accepted after her arrival on the second day. 150 hours of film was shot. There was no time to watch the
rushes during the festival.
References
External links
*
Info on the film production from the Dutch distributor(mostly in English)
2008 films
British documentary films
2008 documentary films
2000s English-language films
2000s British films
{{UK-documentary-film-stub