THE GIRL WITH THE NEEDLE
Portrait of The Girl with the Needle, by Magnus Von Horn
Following Efterskalv (The Here After), premiered at the Directors’ Fortnight in 2015, and then Sweat, in the Official Selection of the 2020 Festival de Cannes, the Swedish director Magnus Von Horn is back at Cannes with Pigen Med Nålen (The Girl with the Needle), a new feature film, this time in Danish. In the running for the Palme d’or, the Swedish director is experimenting with a new artistic approach, a history film.
Inspired by a true story, that of the most controversial murder in the history of Denmark, and a real national trauma, the film tells the story of Karoline, a young worker struggling for survival in 1918 Copenhagen. When she becomes pregnant, she meets Dagmar, a woman who runs a clandestine adoption agency. Karoline accepts a job as a wet-nurse alongside her.
With a Danish cast made up of Vic Carmen Sonne (Godland) and Trine Dyrholm (Festen (The Celebration)), the director is continuing to make films without borders, after a first film in Swedish and a second in Polish. His first historical film and his first in black and white, The Girl with the Needle confirms Magnus Von Horn’s eclecticism, as he succeeds in navigating between a teenage drama, a sensational thriller and a experimental black-and-white film.
“With this film, I wanted to explore the possibility of being good in Hell.”
– Magnus Von Horn
A third feature in which Magnus Von Horn continues to pull threads from one country to another, immersing us each time in a different language, culture, setting and era, and this time with a shiver of dread.
