The Last Observers: A 36-Year Chronicle of Love, Devotion, and the Human Ability to Care

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Maja Mikkelsen’s The Last Observers is a film that transcends documentary form. It is a meditation on time, a testament to human resilience, and an intimate love letter to two people whose extraordinary dedication preserved not only meteorological data, but a way of being in the world.

Produced by Patagonia Films and distributed by Voce Spettacolo by Walter Nicoletti, at its core lies the remarkable story of Karin Persson and Lennart Karlsson, a couple who spent over thirty-six years manually documenting the weather at the Falsterbo station in Sweden. Every three hours, without interruption, day and night, 365 days a year. More than 100,000 observations, carried out with an unwavering sense of duty — undeterred by storms, illness, family events, or the passage of time.

Human knowledge in an automated world

As the world moved toward automation, Karin and Lennart remained the last guardians of a disappearing practice — a form of knowledge rooted in presence, physical experience, and direct interaction with nature.

Their station became the final manual outpost in a country where over 200 weather stations had been replaced by automated systems. The Last Observers captures this transition not with nostalgia but with emotional clarity: when we lose human observation, we lose a part of our connection to the Earth itself.

A daughter preserving a legacy

As both filmmaker and daughter, Maja Mikkelsen approaches the story with an intimacy that few documentaries achieve. She weaves together present-day footage from the couple’s final years of work, family archives, handwritten meteorological logs, images of the migratory birds that define Falsterbo’s natural rhythm. The result is a haunting, lyrical portrait of a family and a world undergoing irreversible change.

A story that speaks universally

The Last Observers becomes both deeply personal and universally urgent.

A love story — to each other and to the planet

Karin and Lennart often say: “Normal salary. Wonderful life.”
Within that simple statement lies the philosophy of the film: some of the most important work on Earth is done quietly, humbly, away from the spotlight — driven not by money but by devotion, curiosity, and love.

The Last Observers is not simply a documentary. It is a cinematic act of preservation.
A reminder that to observe is to care — and that caring is what keeps us human.