Moscow International Film Festival / BlueCat Short Film Festival 2019 – SHE-PACK
Anarchy emerges at a public pool party when a group of small girls push the limits of their strength and power.
Interview with Director Fanny Ovesen
Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
SHE-PACK is our graduation film from The Norwegian Film School. The idea was born when the all-female crew discussed our experiences of being raised as "good girls", always behaving and taking care of everyone else's needs but our own. We also had some intense memories of pushing the limits of our strength and capacity, though, and when doing this we often ended up hitting too hard since we weren't as used to these kinds of games as our male friends who were always playing around measuring their strength.
We got eager to explore how an audience would react to small girls who, for once in a while, don’t behave innocently and pleasing - but who act immorally and take up space in the world.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
As a member of the audience, you're going to see small girls in a way you probably haven't before (on screen, that is - but maybe you have in real life, perhaps she was you at that age!). You're going to get surprised, entertained, appalled and invigorated.
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
Thematically, SHE-PACK is a film about girl power and femininity. It’s a rebellion against the demands to be a “good girl”, and encourages girls of all ages to raise their voices and demand space in this world. It’s about understanding, for the first time, that you’re more than you’ve been told.
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development?
We started only with the theme and a notion of what we wanted to tell and began writing scenes about a group of girls without a clear protagonist. Our goal was to write "scenes that we'd like to see ourselves". We soon found the arena for the film, the public pool party, and after a while, we realised that it'd be interesting to follow the leader of the "pack" - the girl who triggers the group and makes everyone go wild. The dramatical motor - two alpha females competing for the group's attention - was born there, and was the last thing that fell into place.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
Other filmmakers generally like it, I guess because they seem to think it’s audiovisually playful and thematically refreshing. When it comes to the ”normal” audience, it seems to divide people which is super interesting. Some love it and some are super provoked. We have tried not to moralize at the ending, and that also seems to make people either interpret it as a clean ”Lord of the flies” story or interpret it as a liberation story. I get the feeling that women to a larger extent than men lean towards liberation, maybe because many of them can recognise themselves in the characters and have missed seeing girls in those kinds of roles on film.
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
We premiered internationally at the Berlinale, in the Generation Kplus section for kids up to 14 years old. When we made the film, we didn’t think of kids as the target audience even though the characters are 11-year-olds. We always thought, though, that it’d be lovely if kids would get anything out of watching it, maybe something else than adults since they often read films in other ways. It seemed that the young audience at the Berlinale experienced a lot of feelings during the screenings – the reactions in the theatre were huge – and we always got a lot of questions at the Q&As. Some of the scenes seemed to be a bit complex though, which doesn’t surprise me since they are of the more symbolical kind, but it was wonderful to get the kids’ unfiltered questions afterwards. One boy around 12 asked me why I made such a pervert movie, referring to some of the girls’ mischiefs (a question I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have got if the film was about boys the same age)!
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
Visibility, new contacts - and more small, wild girls to the world!
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?
The Norwegian Film School owns the rights to the film, but distributors, film festivals of all kinds and journalists are very welcome to contact us.
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?
I would love for this film to provoke discussion about what is expected of girls as opposed to boys, and what the consequences can be when we restrain girls' urge to explore and test their limits in a way that we generally don't do with boys.
What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?
How far will small girls be able to go when they get tired of being cute and innocent?
What other projects are the key creatives developing or working on now?
Fanny Oovesen is working on her first feature-length film with the working title Laura, based on her own experiences. She won the Nordic Talents Pitch Prize for Laura in September 2018, and later the same year she was awarded The Swedish Film Institute's new pilot support Wild Card. She recently received the Swedish Anna prize for the project’s relevance for the UN Women’s Convention.
Producer Lotte Sandbu is involved in several projects, but the most recent is the short film The Manila Lover by director Johanna Pyykkö which will premiere at a very prestigious and yet secret film festival.
Scriptwriter Maren Skolem has worked as a screenwriter for several TV-series in Norway since she graduated in June 2018.
Interview: April 2019
We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series, music video, women's films, LGBTQIA+, POC, First Nations, scifi, supernatural, horror, world cinema. If you have just made a film - we'd love to hear from you. Or if you know a filmmaker - can you recommend us? More info: Carmela
SHE-PACK
Anarchy emerges at a public pool party when a group of small girls push the limits of their strength and power.
Length: 18:10
Director: Fanny Ovesen
Producer: Lotte Sandbu
Writer: Maren Skolem
About the writer, director and producer:
FANNY OVESEN is a Swedish filmmaker living in Norway. She works with themes such as norms, structural power and privilege. Her graduation film from the Norwegian Film School, SHE-PACK, premiered at the Berlinale in 2019 and went on to win Best Student Short at the Aspen Shortsfest. Fanny is currently developing her first feature for which she, among several development awards, won the Swedish Anna prize for the project’s relevance for the UN Women’s Convention.
MAREN SKOLEM is a Norwegian screenwriter. She has written for TV-series for both children and adults and works in different genres. Maren studied creative writing before attending the Norwegian Film School and has also written lyrics for four music albums. Maren believes in storytelling’s incredible ability to unite people, to create empathy and understanding, and to make us feel less alone. She believes this to be crucial in a time of discord and uncertainty.
LOTTE SANDBU is a Norwegian producer based in Oslo. She studied at the Norwegian Film School after having worked as a production assistant and production manager for both film and television. Lotte graduated in 2018 and started working as a producer for Barbosa Film directly after. As a producer, she hopes to combine both political awareness and feminism in films that have the capacity to reach a young audience, both at home and abroad.
Key cast: Elen K. Frogner, Martine N. Hammerstad, Wiktoria Grzegorczyk
Looking for: distributors, film festival directors, journalists
Facebook: SHE-PACK
Instagram: @farligejenter
Hashtags used: #farligejenter #shepack #dnf #dennorskefilmskolen #thenorwegianfilmschool
Website: www.filmskolen.no
Funders: The Norwegian Film School, Maipo Film, Nordisk Film, Sparebank1 Lillehammer, Kulturfonden för Sverige och Finland, Stange Kommune, Fritt Ord
Where can I watch it next and in the coming month? Moscow International Film festival, April 18-25th 2019 ; BlueCat Short Film Festival in LA, April 30th 2019; The Norwegian Short Film Festival in Grimstad, June 12-16th 2019