“Listen to me” tells the unique story of Magne, a boy that was trapped in his own head, but is finally being heard. Through Magnes’ eyes, his past and his dreams, we will also get a different look at our own lives.


”Listen to me” is the story of 27 year-old Magne from the north of Norway.
As a young boy he was diagnosed as ”Deeply mentally retarded” by the Norwegian health service. ”Nothing reaches this boy,” the doctors concluded.  “Just keep him at home”, his parents were being told. “A vegetable” was what people called him.

The sofa
Magne grew up without stimuli, sitting on the corner of the sofa in his parents’ home, just staring into the air day after day, year after year. But Magne’s family always had a feeling that he understood more than the doctors said…  

The tests
The year Magne turned 27, the family hears about an institute in the USA that offers a special training program for people with brain damage. They put together enough money for Magne to go through new examinations. The results were clear: Magne is not retarded. He is super sharp. A damage done to his mid-brain when he was born, has prevented him from expressing him self and communicating with the outside world.
But the receiving function of the brain is working perfectly well.
Throughout all of these years he has understood everything: Every single word for 27 years. From his corner of the sofa he has watched the news on television and knows everything that is going on in the world. He has heard the family’s conversations without ever having been able to take part. And he has heard all the discriminating words, but has never been given the chance to answer back.

The potential
The doctors at the Institute of Human Potential in Philadelphia, believe that Magne still has the potential to learn how to walk, write and maybe one day talk. He is given an intensive training program which is based on the notion that mid-brain damage can be compensated for by controlled stimulation of other “sleeping cells” within the brain, to replace the functions of the damaged part. But such a brain-program will take a lot of effort from Magne and everyone around him.

The supporters
Back home, in the little town of Planterhaug, more than 30 neighbours have formed a support group to help Magne recover. Teams of five people at a time visit Magne every day to take him through his brain-stimulating program with repetitive “patterning” exercises – teaching him to crawl, walk and feed himself.
His parents have taken a year off from work to devote all their time to Magne. They get up at 5
o’clock in the morning to prepare for his program. “It’s like a miracle. We will get to know our own son. After all of these years, we owe him every hour of the day,” the father says.

The first words
After a several months of following the intensive training, Magne was taught to write in clumsy and crude sort of way, with assistance of another person. To the amazement of everyone, one of his first complete sentences was: “Yes, I have brain damage but I am intelligent.”

The voice
The film has a particularly strong voice. It has the voice of someone that was never heard.
Magne is on his way to undergo a tremendous transformation, from being “a nobody” to finding his place in the world. How will he catch up with all the years lost? How will his life change? What obstacles, opportunities and surprises will he meet along the way?

The inner and outer journey
The film invites the viewer on a journey; Magnes’ journey.
In this film we will see Magne bloom. But also, inevitably, much pain and frustration will be expressed by Magne as he learns to communicate his inner world with those around him.

He will take us back in time, he will share his life as it used to be:
“I was desperate. I did not know what would become of me. I hated everyone and everything.
I was afraid of what would happen to me when my parents died.”

Magne wants to re-unite with the doctor that once gave him the wrong diganosis:
“I will fight to get the right diagnosis. The local doctor was wrong. He must understand.
He must admit it. This means a lot to me.”

But Magne says he doesn’t want to be bitter. Because now he has a future, and he can pursue his dreams…
“I want to see the world! And I hope to one day, meet a girl... It is quite natural at my age.
But I know that it has to be quite a special woman in order for her to get involved with me.”