THE KETCHUP EFFECT
aka HIP HIP HORA!

Year: 2004
UK: Parasol Peccadillo Releasing (PPR)
Cast: Amanda Renberg, Bjorn Kjellman, Ellen Fjaestad, Linn Persson, Filip Berg, Marcus Hasselborg, Carla Abrahamsen, Robin Lindbom, Manuel Bjelke, Margareta Pettersson, Cattis Olsen, Ulrika Dahllof
Director: Teresa Fabik
Countries: Sweden / Finland
Language: Swedish (English subtitles)
UK: 90 mins
UK Certificate: 18 contains strong sex and language
UK Release Date: 17 March 2006 (Limited Release - wider)
UK Release Date: 10 March 2006 (Limited Release - London)

(in Swedish)

Synopsis

Sofie (Amanda Renberg), is an innocent 13 year-old preparing to start junior high. Together with her two best friends she is making plans for her fabulous new grown up life - she wants to accelerate her education and growth and go to all the parties and get to know all the cute boys at school and maybe find a boyfriend.

Hearing that there is to be a party at the home of the school heart throb, to celebrate the beginning of term, she gets herself and her friends an invitation. Stealing liquor from her father she mixes a lethal cocktail which they all consume as a pre-party drink. Continuing to drink excessively at the party she loses control and disorientated is taken to a bedroom by a shy 14 year-old boy. Egged on by his mates he unsuccessfully asks her for a blow-job (something she quite clearly knows nothing about!). Recognising her naivety he then asks if she'll give him a hand-job instead. This leads to a painful conclusion to their first sexual experience.

Back at the party Sofie drinks more until she passes out. Comatose on the floor the older boys set about taking compromising photographs of her which they stick up around the school the next day. Sofie then suffers the hard lesson of being labelled an 'easy-lay' and quickly is ostracised by her peers and is misunderstood by her teachers. Even her two best friends dump her and join a different crowd.

Alone and at a loss as well as fearful that her father (a teacher at her school) will discover what's been going on Sofie concludes that there is only one way out....

Written and directed by Teresa Fabik in her feature debut, the film made a quick rise on the local box office in Sweden. Teresa Fabik received the Kurt Linder scholarship 2003 for best feature debut by the Swedish Film Academy, and her film was given the Canal+ award at the Göteborg International Film Festival 2004. The original title is a play on words, meaning Hip Hip Whore.