For nearly twenty years film­mak­er Peter Tor­biörns­son fol­lowed Tinoco and Ninos­ka, an ordi­nary Nicaraguan couple, through the trials of day-to-day life in Nicaragua during a period gov­erned by rad­i­cal eco­nom­ic and social changes. The film presents a charm­ing, yet at the same time moving por­trait of a coun­try where the hope of rev­o­lu­tion has dete­ri­o­rat­ed into futil­i­ty and cor­rup­tion and suc­cumb to a vision­ary “Amer­i­can dream”.

The unusu­al­ly long time span, togeth­er with the out­stand­ing pro­fi­cien­cy of the direc­tor account for the over­all suc­cess of the film. The two main fig­ures Tinoco, from the coast of Nicaragua, and Ninos­ka, from a small moun­tain vil­lage, move so nat­u­ral­ly on the screen that they are able to effort­less­ly char­ac­ter­ize com­plex per­son­al and nation­al real­i­ties. Through its depic­tion of every­day life during uncer­tain times this story clear­ly shows how the char­ac­ters´ con­tin­u­al resis­tance against hard­ship and mis­for­tune have become a tes­ti­mo­ni­al to the courage of life - and the strength of love.