Family Time

A family comes together for the holidays, but before long starts falling apart. Just like every year, middle-aged sisters Susanna and Helena visit their parents' house with their families. But just like every year, Grandpa Lasse drinks too much, Grandma Ella has to take care of everyone, the kids are fed up and the sisters argue about the most pointless things. After Christmas, everyone separates and returns to their everyday lives. Tia Kouvo’s bitingly humorous, universally poignant debut digs into a question we can all relate to: Are we destined to remain stuck in the same patterns or can we ever change - and at last become a happy family?

Tia Kouvo is a director and screenwriter with a background in social psychology. She graduated from Valand Academy in 2018. Family Time is her debut feature film and it is based on her graduation film with the same title. Family Time (2018) was awarded at both HIFF (Love & Anarchy) and Tampere International Film Festival. She is based in Gothenburg and works in both Sweden and Finland. Tia has developed her distinct, observational style in her previous films, among them award-winning Chat with me (2014) and We Retired People (2018). Her latest short film, Hollywood, is in post-production. She is a participant of Torino Feature Lab 2021 and Nordic Film Lab 2021.