In the village Karrild, the Countess Sonia Hardenborg and a young unmarried woman, Marta, give birth to a daughter on the same day. Marta dies after birth, so Marta's daughter, Betina, come under the care of the countess. 17 years later, Betina and Countess Sonia's daughter, Maria, meet, as Betina is living in a home for orphaned girls, which is adjacent to the Hardenborg estate. The two girls become friends, and Maria invites Betina to visit her at Hardenborg, to greet her parents Sonia and Otto Hardenborg and her brother Count Flemming. Meanwhile, Betina's father, Frank Jensen, starts working in the estate's woods, and when the two girls come to visit him, he is shocked by the resemblance between the young countess and Betina's mother Marta.
In the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean on the island of Troldø lives a single farming family. The grandmother Gunhild is the only woman on the island and her son Enok is unable to find a wife. Gunhild's advanced age causes her to worry for the future of the family. So she initiates a plan to get Enok married, a plan that is put into action when the young Eva becomes stranded on the island. But the community must be shaken by several dramatic events before Gunhild can breathe a sigh of relief.
A young teacher, Eva Nygaard, arrives in Greenland from Denmark to surprise her fiance, the Doctor Erik Halsøe, but is crushed to find he has not waited for her and he is about to be married to his assisting nurse. Eva travels to a small fishing village to await the next ship back to Denmark. There she enters into a tense and often confrontational relationship with Jens, a quiet moody Dane who manages a trading company outpost. Meanwhile, Jens is trying to persuade a Greenlander named Pavia to become a company fisherman, despite Pavia's fear of alienating his fellow villagers and upsetting the spirit, Qivitoq.
Documentary short film about the work of Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844), one of the most famous Danish sculptors, who spent a good part of his life in Italy.
