Text by Wendy Mitchell

During a Scandinavian Films webinar on June 26, six directors from across the Nordic countries talked about the lessons they have learned while making their debut features.

Khadar Ahmed, writer/director, The Gravedigger (Finland) 
Ahmed is a Somali-born Finnish writer and director, who toured the festival circuit with his 2017 short The Night Thief, and makes his feature directorial debut The Gravedigger, which was developed at Cannes Cinefondation and shot in Djbouti. “No Finnish feature (fiction) film has been entirely made in Africa. I knew the kind of challenge I was getting into. I had to find a production company that would give me freedom, adventure and protection,” he said. That company was BUFO, whose credits include The Other Side of Hope.

Shooting in Djbouti meant a number of challenges, for instance the director reveals, “I was the only person in the entire crew who understood the Somali language.” In addition to backing from The Finnish Film Foundation, the team was also able to access backing from funds like France’s CNC, The Arab Fund for Arts and Culture and World Cinema Fund, and Germany’s FFHSH. The film is now in post and no sales company is attached yet.
 
Nathalie Álvarez Mesén, writer/director, Clara Sola (Sweden) 
Nathalie Álvarez Mesén is a Costa Rican-Swedish screenwriter/director with a BFA in Mime Acting from Stockholm University of the Arts and an MFA in Screenwriting from Columbia University. In 2016 her short Filip was awarded Best Live Action at the Palm Springs ShortFest and her short Asunder was screened at Telluride. She is an alumnus of Berlinale Talents, TIFF Talent Lab, Cine Qua Non Lab and NYFF Artist Academy. She is currently in post-production for her first feature Clara Sola, a co-production between Sweden, Costa Rica, Belgium and Germany. She was born in Sweden but grew up in Costa Rica and wanted to return there as the setting for this story, about a 30-year-old woman trying break free of social and religious oppression, and having a sexual awakening.

Mesén met her Swedish producers -- Nima Yousefi and Peter Krupenin at HOB -- through a speed meeting session at Stockmotion festival in Stockholm. “It’s good to find people who believe in whatever you're doing, because the process is so long that you'll probably have doubts about it and they remind you why you are doing it."

Pulling together all the partners and international funding made her realize “you really need people that are committed.”

Having the right co-producers and collaborators was crucial. “I did want feedback from all the people I'm working with. I can see they all contribute in some way in the story or in the shooting.”

Erika Calmeyer, writer/director, Storm (Norway) 
Erika Calmeyer graduated from the Norwegian Film School in 2014 and has since worked as a screenwriter and director. As well as shorts Lea and Weight of Spring, she has directed TV drama series Twin starring Kristofer Hivju and created teen anthology series Nudes. Erika is now in pre-production on her feature directorial debut, Storm, produced by Paradox and set to shoot in October 2020. She explains, “It’s about an eight-year-old girl, Storm, who is accused of being involved in the death of her little brother, when he drowns in a river while they were playing. And then we follow the mother who deals with these accusations and tries to protect Storm and also find out about what really happened.”

It’s a story she starting thinking about back when she was in film school. “I's been with me for a very long time, getting funding and financial support, even with government support (the project is backed by the Norwegian Film Institute) that can take a lot of time. And so, it's been with me for a very long time but now it’s finally got set up. And I’m very excited about that.” The project, set up as a Norwegian-Swedish co-production was recently confirmed for Eurimages funding as well.

Having that time to gestate the film over about seven years, she says that time has been useful since she left film school. “I'm kind of happy that the project has been allowed to grow and show me to grow, continue to do other things and develop before doing this story.”

Tinna Hrafnsdóttir, writer/director, Quake (Iceland) 
Tinna Hrafnsdóttir is an Icelandic director, actress, writer and producer. She is an alumnus of Iceland University of the Arts, Reykjavik University (MBA), TIFF Filmmakers Lab and runs her own film production company, Freyja Filmwork. She has made two award-winning short films, Helga (2016) and Munda (2017), and is currently developing her first miniseries. Quake is her first feature (now in post-production).
 
She agreed finding the right experienced producer to collaborate with was crucial --- in her case, Hlin Jóhannesdóttir. “I wanted the producer to share the same vision as me and of course being easy to get along with because it's like you're going into this temporarily marriage with another person,” Hrafnsdóttir recalls.

Another important step on her journey was to use international markets and labs to develop the film and her career and make new connections. She took part in the TIFF Filmmakers Lab, Tallinn’s Baltic Event Co-Production Market and Script Pool, Midpoint, as well as pitching it at Haugesund’s New Nordic Films.

That international profile also helped the project get funding back home via the Icelandic Film Centre. “All these all these elements of course makes the application stronger,” Hrafnsdóttir said, as did having a female-led filmmaking team and story.

Lisa Jespersen, writer/director, Persona Non Grata (Denmark)
Jespersen is a Danish writer and director who graduated from the National Film School of Denmark in 2017. Her debut directorial feature is light-hearted drama Persona Non Grata, which reunites Lisa with screenwriter Sara Isabella Jønsson, who also co-wrote her graduation film September.

The film, backed by the DFI’s New Danish Screen, has been selected for the very influential Danish Cinema Club and will be released in Danish cinemas by Nordisk Film in July 2021.

She worked on a small budget of less than Euros 700,000, which seemed ideal for her – “Since I never worked on a huge budget I felt kind of safe that we could do it our way,” Jespersen said.

She was determined for her first feature to be the right personal story she wanted to tell. After her graduation short from the Danish Film School was about mature women, she had lots of offers to work on similar stories. But she wanted to forge her own path with a story that reflected her own experience – a woman who comes home from the city to visit her family on a rural farm. She said the story is about “the clash of coming from the countryside and then coming back there [after the city]. For me this film was very much a search for myself, and figuring out who I am.”

And she found the right producer in Hyaene Films’ Daniel Mühlendorph, who she had met at film school. “It's nice to have a producer who -- when you're getting off your own path -- they know how to push you in again. It helps that he ‘got’ what I wanted to do.”

She wanted to tell the story in a personal way that shows off her filmmaking voice, but is also can be accessible to a broad audience.

"What I do is I write a story and for some reason people can get it. My parents can totally get the film, my 18-year old niece gets the film. But of course I want to tell the story in the right way, and that’s partly who you work with, like my DoP Manuel Alberto Claro. We developed a very personal style for this film.”

Ninja Thyberg, writer/director, PLEASURE (Sweden) 
Thyberg is a Swedish writer and director who graduated from Stockholm University of the Arts in 2015, gaining international attention with her short films during her studies. Ninja's first short film earning international recognition was Pleasure, which won the Canal+ Award after playing in Critics’ Week at Cannes 2013 and was selected for Sundance. Ninja won further festival prizes with Hot Chicks and Catwalk. Her feature debut Pleasure, inspired by her short, has been selected for the 2020 Cannes Label and is sold by Versatile (it is now in the final stages of post-production).

It’s a film that she’s been thinking about for 10 years. “I knew what I wanted to do back then, and I wanted to make a feature, but at that time I wasn't in a position where that felt like opportunity. So I used the short, as some kind of pilot.”

She wanted to tell her story, about a Swedish woman navigating the porn industry in Los Angles, in a new way. “I felt that I was on to something that has never been done before, portraying the porn industry from a female perspective.” She finished film school in 2015 and “started to work full time on this project,” including a lot of research in Los Angeles in the porn industry.

Her producers (at Plattform Produktion and Grand Slam) and collaborators (backers include the Swedish Film Institute, SVT and Film i Vast) on the film understood that the process had to be slower than with most films.

The partners also were patient with Thyberg because they saw she was creating something special. “They've seen the progress and they also understood that it has great value [to create it over five years],” she said. “And in the end I think everyone just wants the film to be as good as possible and they also understand what this project is.”

More reading and resources

•  Danish Film Institute
• Finnish Film Foundation
• Icelandic Film Centre
• Norwegian Film Institute
• Swedish Film Institute
• Clara Sola at Swedish Film Database
• The Gravedigger at BUFO
• Persona Non Grata at Danish Film Institute
• Pleasure at Versatile
• Quake at Icelandic Film Centre
• Storm at Norwegian Film Institute