Ten short films from Nordic “Directors to watch” follows the December issues of the Nordic film magazines RUSHPRINT in Norway, EKKO in Denmark, Episodi in Finland and FLM in Sweden. One of the directors is Marie Grahtø Sørensen with «Daimi».

– How did you get the idea for the film?

“The idea for Daimi came from two encounters I have had with different people and their stories. I had a substitute teacher in school that I was good friends with when I was thirteen years old. He told me he had had a strongly handicapped daughter at my age who died in the house where he took care of her alone. When she died he chose not to tell anyone until a day after. He wanted to sleep beside her one last time, in her bed. That was his way of saying goodbye to his only child. I have thought a lot about this story because I think it is a beautiful way to say goodbye.”

“But the specific idea for a film about a mother and a daughter came when I was told a story about one of my parent’s friends. The friend was still a child when she found her mother dead in a bath tub. The mother had shot herself while her daughter and her husband were not around. Nobody can imagine how that loss must feel if you haven’t tried it.”

“How do you move on from such a loss? What happens in that space that arises when you discover that your mother is dead till you go out into the world and tell people about it? It was this space that I wanted to explore. And in addition to this I wanted to have a pig in the story. I can’t exactly tell how this idea arose. Maybe it has something to with the fact that my ex-boyfriend used to have a pet pig.”

“I fought a lot with myself about whether I even had the right to tell this story – if it was okay when the story was based on emotions I hadn’t experienced myself. But together with my co-scriptwriter, Eini Carina Grønvold, we decided that the story basically should be about being abandoned, loneliness, sorrow and about what to do to move forward.”

“In addition both me and Eini loved Lynne Ramsay’s Morvern Callar, and that ended up being a common inspiration, and that movie gave us courage to do Daimi.”

– What was the biggest challenge of making the film?

“There are always a lot of challenges but most of these I solved together with the crew and the actors. I think the biggest challenge was that I was terrified I wouldn’t be able to tell the story with enough respect for those who have lost in the same way as Daimi has lost her mother in the film. Therefore we were extremely aware not to use the suicide as a dramatic effect, which caused the lingering style in the film.”

– Which feelings do you hope the audience is left with after watching the film?

“Off course I’m hoping that people will identify with Daimi. Even though her surroundings aren’t exactly common for most people there are some universal emotions at stake; loneliness, being abandoned, rage, aggression, sadness. I think our pig is extremely funny, and hopefully others think so too. The pet pig is intended to be a comic-relief in Daimi’s ramshackle universe.”

– What has this film meant for your career?

“Well, I’m still in school and right now my focus is on my graduation film, so I don’t think I really got a career yet. There is so much strategy, politics, economy and luck involved in this question and I’m learning to cope with this. It is not an easy business to establish yourself in, there is a lot of talented people who want your spot. But if I have to answer the question then I think Daimi has increased my chances of getting to make movies in the future. The film has been screenes at lot of festivals around the world and it was nominated for a Robert in 2012, so it has been quite successful.”

– Why does the film look the way it does – aesthetically and stylistically?

“The main inspiration for Daimi is without a doubt Morvern Callar. I love it when movies don’t equate efficiency with fast story telling. There is not a lot of dialogue in Daimi and I wanted the audience to dwell on the different moods. Our cinematographer, Jonas Berlin, introduced me to Harmony Korine’s Gummo and it became a common reference which turned out to be quite important for the film. It lead me back to two things that I really love; Slow-motion and to have the actor look directly into the camera. I don’t know if the last of these things really works but it was something that I wanted to try and I think it ended up with a series of expressive images.”

“We decided we wanted Daimi to be a ‘clean’ film, in the sense that it would be interesting to tell the film with few different shots. Our location was an old, colorful estate that had been empty for a long time and this house gave us some amazing opportunities that we wanted to exploit so that the audience would be free to feel Daimi.”

– How do you feel about the result today? – What is good and what is bad?

“There will always be a thousand things that I would like to have done better. But in the end I think it should be the audience who decide what’s good and what’s bad. I want to emphasize that Bebiane Ivalo Kreutzmanns is fantastic as Daimi. I’m enormously proud of the performance she gave. I had worked with her before and we wrote the part for her from the beginning. But she really took the part to a whole other level that none of us dared to hope for.”

“In addition, the location was a character in itself and it was essential for the story that it worked. Our idea of a decayed, rotten, cockroach infested universe really came to life in the estate that our producer, Maria Gry Henriksen, fought a battle to get access to.”

– What was the most important thing you learned during the making of your film?

“Daimi was my first film made at Super16, an independent film school that exists as a part of Nordisk Film. I had only made one short film before this so I didn’t really knew anything about what I was doing. I still don’t, I think. That is the ground feeling every time. I have come to realize that this is a starting point I just have to accept and then focus on that it has to be fun even though it takes a lot of hard work. That might be a corny answer. But it’s damn hard to accept that there will always be a great bit of anxiety associated with the thing I dream of doing the rest of my life. Maybe it gets better when I get older – that would be nice.

– Which Nordic directors inspire you?

“There is a lot of Nordic directors that I have huge respect for. But there is not anyone in particular that I get inspired by. At least not consciously. You always define yourself from the surroundings. Any choice is a rejection of something else. So everyone is somehow standing on the shoulders of others. There is of course Lukas Moodyson. Fucking Åmål has somehow defined an entire generation of young filmmakers.”

“The directors I love the most are all from outside the Nordic countries; Lynne Ramsay, Harmony Korine, Gaspar Noé, Michael Gondry.”

– How would you describe the conditions for making feature films in Nordic countries?

“I have not yet made a feature film. So I don’t know much from first-hand experience, and if I know something then it’s mainly regarding Denmark. In general I think it is a jungle of rules and I strongly believe that if you want it enough then you will figure it out one way or another – with or without support from the institutes. I think it makes sense when people are talking about that the excretion in the future will lie on distribution and not on the development of a movie.”

“There are a few companies who have contacted me about a feature film. But that is one thing – to get financing is another. Right now it seems that I would have to do another short film at New Danish Screen when I’m through with Super16 where I at the time already would have made three short films. I feel ambivalent about this.  It is always good to get some more practice in a more professionalized environment. Something about learning to crawl before walking.”

“But I’m just so hungry right now and I have heard a lot about people who almost suffer an artistic death on their way to get financing from different support systems. I might still be inexperienced when I’m done with film school but I don’t want to hear anything about that it’s for my own sake that I need to do another short film. Not that there is anything wrong with the short film, it is a fantastic format – I would just to like to do a feature film. It was this format I fell in love with.”

“I understand that the competition is fierce and that The Danish Film Institute has to test the talent but maybe they should try to focus on supporting more cheap films at talent level. This way the films would also be tested at an audience which would be better than now where they are shown once at a secret television channel, DR K. It requires that you would be able to transfer that flexibility and entrepreneurial spirit that I for instance find at Super16 to the production of a feature film. Then you would also have to talk to unions but that’s another issue. I often find myself wanting to complain about the fact that I properly have to do more short films when I really should just be happy that I’m even in this business and that I get to be in this very privileged root zone with amazing opportunities at The Danish Film Institute.”

“But in general I don’t want to succumbing to this middle class guilt and I find it hard to be patient enough to just sit around and hope for that the important people will like me when I have practiced some more.”

– Which actors/film professionals from other Nordic countries would you like to work with?

“There is a lot. But is a big dream of mine to work with Valdís Óskarsdóttir.”

– What is your next film going to be about?

“Since Daimi I have fallen in love with pop teenage environments. My midway film at Super16, Lækre til vi dør, is about three cheerleaders who are hiding in their college one night to get drunk. We see Kimmie, who is a vampire and in love with Sally. During the night time we experience a lesbian drama, snow in the gym and a paintball shootout in a pink and neon pop universe. I have taken some of the elements of this story on to my graduation film which I’m working on at the moment.”

“My graduation film is called Teenland at it’s about the friendship between three teenage girls who are incarcerated at an institution where they are being treated for their supernatural powers. We follow Sally, a depressive pseudo-intellectual capable of telekinesis. Ting-e-ling is a sociopath and she can telepathize. Puff suffers from an anxiety disorder and every time she gets scared she floats to the ceiling.”

“The institution has to be considered according to the rules described in classic institution movies such as Girl Interrupted and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but visually Teenland is going to look like a dystrophic pop universe. The girls’ prison uniforms are pink, the hall ways are pink, the isolation rooms are green and blue and the medicine consists of purple pills labeled ‘E’. The friendship between the three teenage girls arises in the name of rebellion against the institution and the way the institution wants to control them. But basically the film is going to be about Sally and her path towards accepting herself.”

“I hope Teenland is going to be awesome, because I dream of making it into a feature film.”

av Jeppe Mørch & Marie Andersen / Filmmagasinet Ekko