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GÖTEBORG 2022

Marianne Blicher • Regista di Miss Viborg

"Volevo che il film sembrasse una favola nel ghetto, con molti colori e profondità, a simboleggiare la speranza"

di 

- La regista danese racconta una storia ambientata in una zona di case popolari del suo paese, e ci parla dei personaggi della sua storia, della scelta degli attori e del concept visivo del film

Marianne Blicher • Regista di Miss Viborg

Questo articolo è disponibile in inglese.

Danish director Marianne Blicher presents in Göteborg her feature film debut Miss Viborg [+leggi anche:
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. We talked to the director about the characters of her story, her choice of actors and the visual concept of the film.

Cineuropa: Why did you want to tell this story?
Marianne Blicher: I grew up in a social housing area myself. Here you were mostly looked at as the odd ones out or a charity case, by people who didn't live there and didn't know you. I want to address the prejudices that follow you, when living and growing up in a place like that. I want to show that there are real people behind the prejudices, people with a story. People you normally only see in social-realism films or documentary in Denmark. My idea was to make an honest “fairy-tale” drama with humour, warmth and hope - a declaration of love to my old hood.

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What are the main topics you wanted to talk about?
I wanted to show the importance of community and the transformative power of friendship. Also, in Denmark, I feel like our society has become more closed up. More selfish. Many people don't really know their next-door neighbour and use their energy to try maintaining a super-plus-like exterior façade. It's exhausting and lonely and I want to address what might happen if we opened up, helped and saw each other, a little like Solvej and Kate in my film.

How did you develop the main characters? Where did you get your inspiration from?
I am inspired by my own upbringing and different people I knew, know or have seen in the cityscape. There was, for example, one neighbour who was selling his prescription medicine, so he could travel once a year with his sick wife. Everybody knew it and ignored it, because of his story. There was also a former beauty queen in my old hood, who was maybe mentally ill, talking to herself and hitting us children with her handbag if we came too close. As a child I was mostly afraid of her, but when I grew older, I kept wondering what would have happened if she had met a Kate, a friend who saw and helped her. I used it all as inspiration, but the story and characters in Miss Viborg are a product of totally free imagination.

How did you find your two main protagonists?
For both actresses, it's their debut in a lead role in a feature film. Ragnhild Kaasgaard, who plays Solvej, has never been in front of a camera. It took me three years to find her. My first thought was that I wanted protagonists that have never been seen on the big screen before. Someone new. So, I did a lot of open castings, but as the years went by, I also started casting professional actors, because I couldn’t find her. I guess I saw 300 to 400 people. I knew I couldn't make the movie before I found the right Solvej, since she was going to carry the film. Then someday, a friend told me about this actress working mostly in children's theatre. We invited her for a casting and when she arrived, I immediately knew she was the one. Once I found her, I had to find her sidekick, the young Kate. Isabella Møller Hansen, a natural talent, was the perfect choice. Their chemistry was electric.

How did you work with the actors?
I had two different approaches; Isabella, who plays Kate, had some experience and was very comfortable in front of the camera. So, for me it was more important to talk to her about the character. Isabella comes from a different environment than a girl from the ghetto, who grew up without her dad, so it was important that she understood her character’s background and her choices that came from that. For Ragnhild, it was a different approach, since she hadn't been in front of a camera before. We did scenes in front of the camera and talked about how a film set works. We met almost every week for months, talking about her own background as useful references, discussing the story, each scene and the character. And then I saw Ragnhild transform into Solvej in front of me over the months. Going from being extremely extrovert to introvert. We talked about that, too. Being the character. And it turns out Ragnhild is a natural talent as well.

What were the most important aspects for the visual concept for the film?
From the beginning, my cinematographer Martin Munch and I wanted to make the film look like a fairy-tale in the ghetto, with a lot of colours and depth, symbolising hope. Therefore, it had to be a summer film, otherwise grey would have been the dominant colour, with the concrete buildings and the weather in Denmark. Solvej's apartment had to be a mixture between her untouched past as well as a few new things that show that she is nevertheless alive. The apartment had to have warmth, that she loses immediately when she leaves her cave.

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