Twelve-year-old Niilas travels to Lapland where his Swedish mother and her new family live amongst the Sami, an indigenous reindeer-herding people. Niilas hates parting from his father with whom he has been leading a cosy urban existence, and retreats inwards. The only one who can get through to him is his half-sister Sunnà. The reindeer migration is fully underway and Niilas has to lend a helping hand. Out of spite, Niilas releases a herd of deer and one of the reindeers goes missing. Niilas joins in the search, and an impressive moose keeps crossing his path at the most unexpected moments. The shy cityboy becomes a wild boy, discovering a physicality and strength he wasn’t aware off. Against all odds, Niilas experiences the most adventurous summer of his life.
“Today, I still feel a lot of respect and love for the child’s world. The world in which it perceives the outside world, in which it watches and learns from every small detail that can make life just a little more intense. As a filmmaker, I feel driven to search for an image-language that connects the child’s vision. /…/ Cloudboy brings the story of a boy that slowly reconnects and discovers the possibilities of his own senses and how he perceives the world. He learns to understand he can change his own, just by letting go of his fears and starting to listen to what he hears, feels and sees, and through all this, slowly dares to be the child he truly is.” (Meikeminne Clinckspoor)
Meikeminne Clinckspoor
Clinckspoor decided really young that she wanted to make children's movies. After a theatre education in Amsterdam, she pursued film education at the KASK Film School in Belgium. Her last children’s short film was Ki, which premiered at the Cinekid Film Festival in Amsterdam. Cloudboy marks her feature film debut.
filmography
2008 De geboorte (short)
2009 De wensboom (short)
2015 Ki (TV short)
2016 Cloudboy