Life Overtakes Me

Life Overtakes Me (Swedish: De apatiska barnen; English: The Apathetic Children) is a 2019 Swedish-American documentary film directed by Kristine Samuelson and John Haptas. The film shows how hundreds of refugee children in Sweden withdraw into a coma-like illness called Resignation Syndrome because of the uncertainties of their legal status.[2][3][4]

Life Overtakes Me
Directed byKristine Samuelson
John Haptas
Distributed byNetflix
Release date
  • April 7, 2019 (2019-04-07) (Full Frame Film Festival)[1]
  • June 14, 2019 (2019-06-14)
Running time
39 minutes
CountrySweden, United States
LanguageEnglish

The film was released on Netflix on June 14, 2019.[5]

The film was nominated for an Oscar for best short-subject documentary, for the 92nd Academy Awards in 2020.

Controversy

According to witnesses cited by the Swedish magazine Filter, one of the children profiled in the film was pressured by her parents to simulate resignation syndrome for the express purpose of improving the family's prospects for permanent residence status in Sweden. The witnesses insisted that the girl had in fact been a well-functioning, normal child who was coached into faking her illness when doctors and officials were present.[6]

Sweden's public television network, SVT, interviewed Swedish pediatrician Karl Sallin as saying that the filmmakers had cherry-picked phrases from interviews with him in a "reckless and dangerous" fashion, distorting his view of the situation. SVT sought the producers repeatedly for comment, who chose not to respond.[7]

References


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