Through a raging blizzard we see a cemetery.

People are gathered around an open grave. Two coffins are being lowered into the grave. One of the coffins is smaller than the other. A young girl and her mother cling to each other in their grief, but as they move toward the grave to pay their last respects the girl tears herself away, and starts to run out of the cemetery.

The girl runs aimlessly through the blizzard. In the dark skies two ravens follow her. Although of weak might she is driven by her need to get away, to escape the horror that her life has become. Reaching a point of collapse she slows down outside an old barrack, on top of which the pursuing ravens have perched. From the inside she can hear laughing and cheerful applause. A theatrical performance has come to a close.

With a desire for the positive energy that emanates from the theatre the girl remains there, staring at it.

Lára’s father has just died.

He was taken away suddenly by a terrible accident, along with his young son, Lára’s little brother. Her mother, the mayor of Port Cove, their hometown, is unable to bear the grief. Incapable of supporting Lára or taking care of their home she shuts herself off with work.

It is a very dark era for Lára. In her hopelessness she has all but completely isolated herself from her friends, and her mother attempts to rid the house of every item that reminds her of the perished husband and son. In a fit of desperation Lára salvages a random possession of her father’s – a personal notebook.

Looking through it later Lára finds all kinds of cut-outs, photographs and other scrap material. What seizes Lára’s attention, however, is an old programme for a play, on the cover of which is a picture of her father in front of the barrack theatre. This discovery sets Lára off in search of her father’s spirit, or memory, at the barrack theatre. Lára befriends the members of the theatre company, a gang of eccentric and adventurous senior citizens who introduce Lára to a playful and creative way of approaching life’s hardships.

In the meantime a corrupt councilwoman called Stefanía is secretly plotting to have the theatre demolished by any means necessary. The objective of her scheme is to enable her villainous lover to buy the plots, so that they may profit from them.

Lára becomes a full-fledged member of the company in honour of her father’s memory, but as they begin rehearsing their next big project Stefanía’s two minions, Hjörtur and Steini, join the company undercover as well with the orders to commit various acts of sabotage to ruin the show.

On opening night the show is a failure and only three audience members are in attendance. This is a great blow for the company and not least for Lára who almost loses heart, but with a resolve to keep her father’s spirit alive she suggests that the company devise a street performance to capture the town’s attention. The resulting event proves to be an enormous success and the company now believes that the barrack theatre’s future has been insured.

Stefanía, however, disagrees. Furious at Hjörtur and Steini for failing to annihilate the company’s reputation, she decides to burn the theatre to the ground.

The crime is committed under the cover of night, but the perpetrators are unaware that one of the seniors, Dolli, actually inhabited the theatre’s boiler room. The next morning a burnt skeleton is discovered in the ruins, to everyone’s horror.

Lára is called to a meeting with the company where it’s revealed that a short while ago Dolli had left them a letter with instructions: if anything ever happened to him they should read it. The letter turns out to contain a series of clues that they are asked to follow, as Dolli claims to have possessed evidence to incriminate certain malefactors who are involved in the incident.

This is the beginning of an adventurous scavenger hunt, the first clue of which is found at Dolli’s bizarre funeral and the last one leads Lára to Stefanía’s office at the town council. She eavesdrops as the furious Stefanía explains to Hjörtur and Steini that she has just received a call from a strange man, who claims he’s got hold of a security tape showing her burning the barrack. The man is asking a large sum of money for the tape and wants to make the transaction at a chapel just outside town at midnight. Lára decides to hide at the chapel to watch the transaction, but after seeing a dark hooded man hand the security tape over to Stefanía, she decides to run and snatch the tape from Stefanía’s hands.

This results in a great chase where Stefanía, Hjörtur and Steini stop at nothing to catch Lára. The old gang comes to Lára’s rescue and they manage to deliver the tape to the police. But when they play the video back it becomes apparent that it was a hoax, to their great humiliation.

When Lára arrives at her home again the dark hooded man is there waiting for her. He takes his hood down and reveals that he is Dolli himself, still alive.

Dolli hadn’t been inside when the fire started at the barrack, and the skeleton that was carried off had been an old prop. When Dolli had returned and realized what had happened in his absence he immediately began to suspect Stefanía, so he decided to exploit the fact that he was considered dead. He had initiated a series of events to try and get Stefanía to confess her guilt, but by snatching the tape Lára had unwittingly sabotaged his ploy.

At this discovery Lára’s bottled up emotions erupt to the surface and she becomes furious with Dolli for making a game out of death. She storms off and in her anger renounces any further involvement with such eccentric old fools. Once Lára is inside her mother notices how upset she is and snaps out of her mental slumber. Realizing that Lára needs her help to work through their loss she opens up and they have a talk about Lára’s father and brother. Being able to talk about them with her mother calms Lára down, and the next day her mother encourages her to patch things up with her new friends.

Lára goes back to see Dolli and together with the rest of the company they come up with a new plan, one final performance, to scare Stefanía into confession.

Using the theatrical means at their disposal they stage a haunting at Stefanía’s house, where Dolli ‘returns from the dead’ and threatens to drag Stefanía with him to hell if she doesn’t confess her crime. The trick is so successful that Stefanía almost has a nervous breakdown during the night of their visit.

Lára and the company are victorious, Stefanía and her villainous lover do not get away with their crime, and the adventure marks a shift in Lára’s life. With her new friends’ support she regains hope for the future.

L7: Ravens, Buttercups and Myrrh has been in development for three years now. It is based on a novel that will be published in the summer. The screenplay is written by the authors, Eyrun Osk Jonsdottir and Helgi Sverrisson. The film is produced by One-way Films and will be released in 2010. The company’s production model is partly based on what we call the Beyet manifesto, or Bull’s Eye Technique, which dictates that a film can be better made, and more cost-effectively, by limiting 90% of locations to a 1,5 kilometre radius (1 mile), with 95% of locations within a 5 kilometre radius (3 miles) and none beyond a 7 kilometre radius (4 miles).