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Former beauty queen and senior citizen Solvej lives alone with her dog in a social housing area on the outskirts of Danish provincial town Viborg. Each day, she performs the same old routines roaming around on her scooter dealing her prescription drugs, dreaming of a world outside Viborg and reminiscing over old love letters from her past. When unforeseen circumstances bring her neighbor’s daughter, rebellious 17-year-old Kate, into her life, an unlikely friendship forms and new hope for the future emerges.
By Nefeli Soteriou
See the feature film Miss Viborg on February 20 @8:30PM at Cinema Village (22 East 12th Street) as part of New York City’s 11th Annual Winter Film Awards International Film Festival. Tickets now on sale!
For Marianne Blicher, films can expand your horizons, enlighten, entertain, give you perspective, motivation, and, or, a well-deserved break from the real world. “For me films have it all! My heart is filled with stories about the voices in our society that need to be heard and Miss Viborg is one of them! I direct stories that remind us that we are all humans. Miss Viborg is a declaration of love to my old neighborhood and to all the people who feel like they are from the “wrong side of the road,” in one way or another. In Miss Viborg, I want to show the importance of community and the transformative power of friendship. Life is not only about being alive but about living your life to the fullest.”
Director-writer Marianne Blicher grew up in a public housing development in a small provincial town in Denmark. Everyday life was often tough and the money scarce, but also filled with understanding and love. Her parents had children at a very young age. They struggled a lot, but made it work by sharing humor, which was helpful in difficult times. They encouraged their kids to do and be whatever they wanted. So, they did! Marianne wrote stories and performed them with her siblings. She started her career working as a stage manager in theater and as a film producer before attending film school – it took her a while to realize that it was a possibility for a girl from the projects to become a film director! But here she is today giving a voice to extraordinary people, providing a female perspective to audiences, with sincerity and a touch of humor.
“I am inspired by my own upbringing and different people I know or knew. There was for example, one neighbor who was selling his prescription medicine so he could travel once a year with his sick wife. Everybody knew it. There was also a former beauty queen in my old hood with mental health issues, 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 my total free imagination.”
According to the filmmaker, the most important collaboration you will have when working on a feature film in Denmark is with your producer. The production secured 1,300,000 EUR for funding and Blicher invested some of her salary in the film. But her producer Eva Jakobsen and the production company Snowglobe did all the hard work. They kept Marianne informed on the big decisions so she could focus on the creative side of the production. “I am so lucky to have found the right production company for me, Snowglobe, and the right producer, Eva Jakobsen, who believes in me, my talent and ideas! They are with me all the way, from idea to the finished film and the life for it after.”
Miss Viborg is the director’s first feature film and took her 10 years to make, primarily due to financing difficulties. “The cast and crew salary were the most expensive items in the budget. The least expensive was the dog playing Poul Riechhardt. We looked for a dog for a long time and the trained dogs are very expensive and we couldn’t afford that. But one day I met with Ragnhild Kaasgaard, who plays Solvej, in her home and there was this little cute goofball following her around. Gaia was her name and she became our dog on the set. She played Poul Riechhardt brilliantly. What a fortunate coincidence! Sometimes we would have to stop shooting because Gaia was snoring too loud and we had to find her and move her. She is so adorable! But what a fortunate coincidence!”
The film uses comedic elements in a serious drama. The filmmaker is breaking a proud tradition from the deep dark Nordic Noir and the lighter comedy, by mixing them. Featured in the film are a sixty and an eighteen-year old female protagonists. It took Marianne three years to find the right couple with the right chemistry to play Solvej and Kate. She turned every stone and almost gave up! But when she finally had the right cast, everything fell into place.
She is exceptionally proud that she persisted and achieved her vision. “Preparation for me was key! I had two different approaches before filming Miss Viborg that had more to do with the understanding of the characters than age; Isabella Møller Hansen, who plays the young Kate, had experience from tv-series and was very comfortable in front of the camera. For me it was more important to talk to her about the character’s background. It was important that she really understood her character’s background and the choices that come from that. Ragnhild Kaasgaard, who plays Solvej, 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 every week for months, talking about her own background as a useful reference, then discussing the story, each scene, and the character’s background and choices in life. I saw Ragnhild transform into Solvej in front of me over the months of preparation, going from being extremely extrovert to introvert and Becoming the character. Ragnhild is a natural talent too.”
Film school training taught Marianne film theory and to make a film hands-on, from beginning to end; from inception, to the distribution of a film. But the most cherished thing her film school provided was a network of fellow trusted filmmakers she can share everything with. They still meet in person a few times a year; directors, producers and writers share and discuss both their personal life and work. It is priceless!
The filmmaker believes in film festivals. For Miss Viborg, among other things, meant working with an international sales agency. Filmmaking depends on so many factors, some are out of your control. But for what Marianne has learned, she can only control her experience. “I learn from my mistakes. I have endurance. I never take “no” for an answer and I keep on fighting for what I believe in. It is about communication. I try to present my wants and needs as clearly and appetizing as possible. And last but not least, it is also really important for me to find the right work relationships, people who believe in me and my vision. Somebody to have my back.”
Marianne is very happy to announce that she is working on two new feature films. With her collaborators, they are in the writing phase with both. One she writes with Rasmus Birch, they both developed the screenplay of Miss Viborg together. And the other one is with two talented Danish female authors – so stay tuned!
Nefeli Soteriou
Nefeli Soteriou’s background is in Film and Media Arts, Creativity Coaching with Coaching Psychology, Behavioral Coaching for Mental Health, and Education. With significant, real-world experience as a Life Coach and Filmmaker, she specializes in helping filmmakers with every aspect of the filmmaking life, from completing unfinished films to handling the stresses and pressures that they face.
About Winter Film Awards
New York City’s 11th Annual Winter Film Awards International Film Festival runs February 16-25 2023. Check out a jam-packed lineup of 73 fantastic films in all genres from 21 countries, including shorts, features, Animation, Drama, Comedy, Thriller, Horror, Documentary and Music Video. Hollywood might ignore women and people of color, but Winter Film Awards celebrates everyone!
Winter Film Awards is an all-volunteer, minority and women-owned registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization founded in 2011 in New York City by a group of filmmakers and enthusiasts. Our mission is to promote diversity, bridge the opportunity divide and provide a platform for under-represented artists and a variety of genres, viewpoints and approaches. We believe that only by seeing others’ stories can we understand each other and only via an open door can the underrepresented artist enter the room.
Winter Film Awards programs are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. Promotional support provided by the NYC Mayor’s Office of Media & Entertainment.
For more information about the Festival, please visit winterfilmawards.com
