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 is about seven participants of the 2007 No Mind Festival at Angsbacka, three miles north of Molkom

Molkom

Molkom is a locality situated in Karlstad Municipality, Värmland County, Sweden with 1,883 inhabitants in 2005....

, Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

. This yearly New Age

New Age

The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...

 event lasts one or two weeks, has a thousand participants, and is claimed to be the largest alternative

Alternative lifestyle

An alternative lifestyle is a lifestyle generally perceived to be outside the cultural norm. Usually, but not always, it implies an affinity or identification within some matching subculture...

 festival in Northern Europe.

The activities shown in the film include tree hugging (each one choosing his own tree), firewalking, nude swimming, sweat lodge

Sweat lodge

The sweat lodge is a ceremonial sauna and is an important event in some North American First Nations or Native American cultures...

, hugging, Tantric sex, 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 fails to apply this energy and is knocked over.
• Ljus, an American hippie
  Hippie
  The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
  
  , and a former goatherd
  Goatherd
  A goatherd or goatherder is a person who herds goats as a vocational activity. Similar to a fisherman who catches fish for a living, the drover here herds goats. Goatherds are popular in countries where goat populations are significant; for instance, in Africa and South Asia...
  
  .
• Regina Lund
  Regina Lund
  Regina Charlotta Theodora Lund is a Swedish actress and singer. She is the daughter of actress Sonja Lund. Regina is no longer in a relationship with the Swedish rock star Joakim Thåström. She is frequently seen in Swedish magazines with new men by her side. The last in the row is an American...
  
  , a well-known singer/songwriter; she arrives one day later, because she had to sing at a lesbian wedding, and leaves earlier.
• Marit, a shy 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 him to come here while she would be here to write a story about the festival. He is very skeptical
  Skepticism
  Skepticism has many definitions, but generally refers to any questioning attitude towards knowledge, facts, or opinions/beliefs stated as facts, or doubt regarding claims that are taken for granted elsewhere...
  
   at first, describing the festival as a cult
  Cult
  The word cult in current popular usage usually refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre. The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices...
  
  , but evolves into an enthusiastic participant. He teaches the group some Australian expressions, pronounced in the Australian way, such as "no worries
  No worries
  No worries is an Australian English expression, meaning "do not worry about that", "that's alright", or "sure thing". It is similar to the American English no problem. The phrase is widely used in Australian speech and represents a feeling of friendliness, good humour, optimism and "mateship" in...
  
  ".

Production

It 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

Fig Rig

Fig Rig is a camera stabilization device for smaller film cameras/video cameras, designed by film director Mike Figgis. The Fig Rig is made commercially by the Manfrotto Group.- External links :*...

. 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

Dailies

Dailies, in filmmaking, are the raw, unedited footage shot during the making of a motion picture. They are so called because usually at the end of each day, that day's footage is developed, synched to sound, and printed on film in a batch for viewing the next day by the director and some members...

during the festival.

External links

• Info on the film production from the Dutch distributor (mostly in English)