TEDDY BEAR

Director's Statement

The story recounted in TEDDY BEAR is about feeling like an outsider. I have always been fond of portraying people who do not fit in that well with society. What prejudices do we harbor when confronted with a tattooed, muscle-bound man? At any rate a hard, emotionally stunted individual – and hardly a vulnerable, shy, affectionate person with an overly close relationship with his mother. Likewise, there are many prejudices against men who travel to Thailand in search of love. In TEDDY BEAR I attempt to play around with people’s prejudices, and turn them upside down. For things are seldom as they appear from the outside … The film portrays different aspects of love. A mother’s clinging love for her son and also the very different pathways love between men and women can take in Denmark and Thailand. People in the West have other criteria when they seek love than purely financial considerations. In Thailand a woman has to find a husband who can support the family. Therefore poor girls head for Pattaya to find a Western man who hasn’t been able to find love back home. TEDDY BEAR is about love, and the search for happiness. It is about the bonds, healthy and unhealthy, that we create with the people we are fond of. And it is about Dennis, who has to learn how to pursue happiness according to his own needs, and not allow himself to be dictated by his surroundings.