Listen Up!

Listen Up! is about 15 years old Mahmoud and the summer he spends in Oslo, waiting for life to start happening. He hasn’t applied for any summer job because he knows people named Mahmoud Mahroof won’t even be called in for an interview. He lives on the twelfth floor of a block on the outskirts of the city and envisions long days sitting on the bench with his friend, one-eyed Arif from Somalia. This summer will however be different. The hilarious Uncle Ji comes to visit Mahmoud’s family from Pakistan, and Mahmoud is given the task of showing his uncle around in Oslo, together with his 9 years old little brother Ali. But we soon learn that little Ali doesn’t behave like most boys do. When Ali later tells Mahmoud that she is a girl, the world according to Mahmoud changes drastically. Will the block, with his mother and father in it, explode and vanish from the surface of the earth?