Awful Normal

For the sake of peace, Celesta kept her mouth shut for 25 years, but now she has had it. “You stop being a victim as soon as you take action,” her elder sister Karen tells her. A married mother, Karen was, to a lesser extent, also a victim of the family friend who abused them in their childhood. Karen was forced to watch him masturbating; the then five-year-old Celesta was coerced into performing oral sex on him. To her, this is why her adult relationships are ruined by fear and distrust. With the camera on her heels and wearing pigtails, Celesta, accompanied by her mother and sister, goes to wrongdoer Alan's apartment in a retirement community. Although the now single man immediately understands what she wants to grill him about, he listens to her amiably and patiently. He asks her how he can rectify his misdeeds. Celesta wants a confession from him. With the screen blotted out, Alan makes it. He claims it was an incidental slip-up, which people did not make a big fuss over back then. “I am not a career abuser.” He hopes that his one indiscretion will not turn him into a brute. After the confrontation, Celesta bursts into tears. Through the emotionally charged film process, she hopes to get on with her life cleansed. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)