Never before have so many children and young people with unexplained symptoms been admitted to Norwegian hospitals.
Teenage Life Interrupted is a story from inside the hospital in Northern Norway where we’re invited into the treatment room following two doctors and the treatment of four teenage girls. How can we as a society accept that so many of our children are losing their childhood and youth due to symptoms that doctors cannot find a physiological explanation for? Could there be an effective treatment for these patients? These are the underlying questions in this documentary. The film follows doctors Hans Petter Fundingsrud and Elin Drivenes, who specialize in treating children with unexplained symptoms. They ask questions that haven’t been asked before and see connections other doctors have overlooked. We get to be part of small miracles when the girls and their families finally get an explanation for what is wrong with them and and an understanding of the child’s complex being.
RIFF: Can you tell us what the context of the film means to you?
Elin Drivenes: Now, for me, it’s important that… because the patients I see, they come to a hospital, to a children’s ward, where we see children with somatic diagnoses, like real pain and real fatigue. And often they are met with, “There’s nothing wrong with your foot”. Like with Thea, we saw that there was nothing wrong with her foot, but her experience was that there was something wrong with her foot. So a lot of these patients, they meet their doctor, and the doctor says, “There’s nothing wrong, you can go home”. Or they say, “Nothing is wrong, but it has to be something about how stressful your life is, let’s go to see a psychiatrist”. And those patients, they won’t feel met, understood. They will feel that you don’t trust them. So for me, it’s important to tell the world that these symptoms are real. It’s not something you create in your own head. Pain is pain, no matter if the pain is because of a broken leg, or the pain is because your father is putting all his stuff in your bucket. So for me, it’s important for the patients to show them that I trust you. When you feel pain, it’s true for you and it’s true for us. And the help is here. There is help for this kind of pain and the help is not a painkiller, it’s another thing. But not giving painkillers doesn’t mean that we don’t trust that the pain is real. So I hope the film will talk to other doctors, especially doctors who work in hospitals for somatic diseases. But I also hope it talks to patients, so they will feel that what I feel in my body is real. That I’m feeling encouraged. And to give it status, being sick in this way.
RIFF: That leads perfectly into our next question, which is, what do you hope the effects of the film will be?
Elin Driveness: I hope for more money for this way of thinking. More doctors who dare to ask those questions. That dare to sit back and not just tell the patient what’s wrong. You see, for example, with Thea, we understood that the troubles the father had was a big load for Thea. But I couldn’t just say it, because if I said, “Thea, I think it’s because your father has been so depressed after his son killed himself”, it wouldn’t have meant anything for her. But because we made room for the father to say it himself, it meant something for her.
RIFF: And finally, why should people see the film?
Elin Driveness: To get hope. To learn to trust other people. To learn to see the people around them. And to be brave enough to ask questions that show that you are interested. To help people around you find another way.
RIFF 2025 takes place in Reykjavík from September 25th to October 5th. Teenage Life Interrupted is screening at RIFF, part of A Different Tomorrow section.