Popular Music

A bittersweet coming-of-age story that weaves between youthful rock-and-roll dreams in a remote, conservative Nordic region and the adult reckoning with loss and guilt that follows.

Matti and Niila, growing up in the mid-sixties in the harsh and conservative environment of a Finnish-speaking part of Tornedalen in Swedish Laponia, close to the Finnish border. Their big dream is to become rock stars. In the present the now grown-up Matti feels guilt for the death of his drug-addicted rock star friend Niila.