Jenny Sjögren

Tom Alandh first met Pia in February 2001, when she was selling Situation Sthlm ​​(a magazine for the homeless). This led to the documentary: Det svåra livet (The Difficult Life), which focused on Pia’s struggle for a dignified life free from drugs. This is the follow-up, exploring Pia’s dreams, longings, sorrows, and joys—and what it takes to manage being an ordinary person.

Ten years after documentary filmmaker Tom Alandh started filming homeless drug addict Pia Sjögren, he makes his third and final film about her. Pia was 14 years old when she started smoking cannabis and using drugs. Then it all happened really fast. The heavier drugs, the men who beat, and years of cold nights in basements and attics. Treatment and punishment. Rehabs and prisons. Relapse. Constantly back, at the complete bottom, among shame and guilt. For ten years, Tom Alandh and photographer Björn Henriksson documented Pia's life. Two films were made, this is the third and last film, which shows how she managed to get clean against all odds.

This documentary follows Pia, who is homeless. She is struggling with her drug addiction. During the day she (and many other homeless people) sells the newspaper Situation Sthlm.

Pia Sjögren was the subject of three documentaries by director Tom Alandh, beginning in 2001. He first saw her on the street selling newspapers, homeless, addicted to drugs, trying to make enough money for the day. Since then, she has become clean, and now gives lectures about her experiences, sharing her knowledge. This is the fourth film about her, filmed between 2011-2020. At the start of this installment, Pia has recently begun having heart and breathing issues, her own daughter is in prison for narcotics, and her mother, who we were introduced to in previous installments, continues to struggle with rapidly decreasing eyesight.

What happened to Pia Sjögren? She who, for thirty years, lived a hard life—marked by substance abuse, homelessness, and abusive men. She who was selling *Situation Sthlm* ​​when Tom Alandh first met her in 2001. And what happened to her mother, Ann-Mari, who fought for her daughter her entire life? And what became of Pia’s two children? Now, the answers are here. The journey with Pia has come to an end—after nearly twenty years.