Flickerfest - Dolphin
Anna takes her 7-years old son Robert to the beach to finish his swimming course, the DOLPHIN, but something is terribly wrong and Anna needs to face reality.
Writer/Director Laurits Munch-Petersen & Writer/Actress Pernille Andersen
Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
In Denmark it is a taboo subject to talk about death. Especially when it’s the loss of a child. And apart from the often and easily spoken words of thoughts and prayers, most people simply don’t know how to behave around or how to respond to someone with bereavement. When someone dies in Denmark the hospital and the priest deal with everything. In other cultures e.g. in Mexico when someone dies you put the dead body in the middle of the room for a few days. The family gathers and cries, dances and laughs until they have come to terms with saying goodbye.
In our film “Dolphin” the Father and the Mother react completely different to having lost their son. The father doesn’t want to talk about it and the Mother really needs to speak about it. This conflict is set in the first scene of the film and portrays how we all have different needs in our mourning process. We found it fascinating to confront this matter; how does someone come to terms with saying goodbye to a loved one? Should we all in a nation follow the same rituals and norms for saying goodbye? In the film we have taken it to an extreme, where the Mother takes her dead son on a last journey on the train to come to terms with her sorrow and to say goodbye. This is to provoke the debate and to put light on the fact that we all have different needs.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
The film deals with the one thing we all are sure to experience – death. However even if this is something we all have in common we react very differently to losing someone. We wish for people to think about how you get the ultimate goodbye.
And if a close friend or a member of a family loses a loved one, how do we support each other best? We have spoken to people who have lost their loved one and some have experienced their closest friends ignoring them simply because the friends don’t know how to react. They have experienced how their friends cross the street when they meet and look the other way. The film is really the ultimate love story between a mother and her son which shows how love can transcend time, place and in the end, death.
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
The theme death is universal. But to talk about it is taboo and therefore it is difficult to approach. Our wish for the film was to make it as personal and relatable as possible. So when we decided it was about a mother and her child it was very important for us the connection between them was as real as possible.
Once the script was written and we were about to cast for a pilot in the attempt to secure funding, we needed to find the right actors. We are both parents to a 7 year old child and since Pernille is an actress, how much more real and personal could it be than for Pernille to play the mother and her real life son Viktor the child. Unbeknown to us, Viktor was a natural born actor and he became the obvious choice for the role, albeit slightly uncomfortably for Pernille and Viktor that he was playing a child who had died! We implemented actual life experiences into the script from Pernille and Viktor’s real life to create the most authentic feeling possible and the connection between Mother and son is clear for all to see in the film.
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development?
The script is based on two real life experiences. One, a story about a man who stole his father’s dead body and tied him on to his motor cycle to take him for a trip through Denmark. The son had always promised him this but never got the chance to do while the father was alive. The other story which inspired us was the story about a man and his pregnant wife who went on a trip and lost the child early in the pregnancy. They received permission to travel with the dead baby in in a car seat to bring it home and say their goodbyes.
We were fascinated about the two stories and the questions they raised and so created the story for the film.
After the script was written we had lots of interviews with people who had actually lost their child, and we found out the script really touched the parents left behind. We changed a few details from the conversations e.g. in one of the first scenes in the lift where Anna – the mother – kicks the wall of the lift because she is so frustrated and sad. This is based on a real life experience where a mother kicked the wall in a hospital because she was so sad and frustrated about the police crying over her lost daughter.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
Most people cry. And we have had a very close working relationship with organizations for parents who have lost a child in Denmark. And the feedback has been more than we could wish for. The organizations use the film in their work. We consider this as the biggest compliment we could ask for, so we are very pleased.
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
We are very pleased and surprised how positive the audience has received the film. We were a bit scared the subject would scare away people but we have experienced quite the opposite.
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
We would love for people around the world to see our film and think about the subject. It is a universal subject and question – how does one handles death the best way possible. We wish the debate to go worldwide and hear as many different opinions on the matter as possible.
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?
We wish for the film to get a big festival life and broadcasting life so it can reach as many people as possible.
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?
We hope to create a debate so people think more about being there for each other when someone loses a loved one. And to think about how to get the goodbye you need. Because you only have one chance; and then it’s too late.
What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?
Taboo.
What other projects are the key creatives developing or working on now?
We are working on two feature film projects both financed by the Danish Film Institute, so we are very excited to keep this working partnership going. Writer and actor together.
Interview: January 2018
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We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series, music video, women's films, LGBTIAQ+, scifi, 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
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DOLPHIN
Anna takes her 7-years old son Robert to the beach to finish his swimming course, the DOLPHIN, but something is terribly wrong and Anna needs to face reality.
Length: 28 minutes
Director: Laurits Munch-Petersen
Producer: M&M Productions, Kim Magnusson.
Writer: Laurits Munch-Petersen & Pernille Andersen
About the writer, director and producer:
The film DOLPHIN is written by director Laurits Munch-Petersen and actress Pernille Andersen, who also plays the lead in the film with her real life son.
Pernille and Laurits are now a writing team working on two new feature films.
Key cast: Pernille Andersen, Thure Lindhardt, Viktor Andersen, Iben Dorner, Thomas Ernst.
Looking for (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists):
Other: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6774460/
Funders: The Danish Film Institute and The Danish Broadcasting Co-operation (DR) funded the film
Made in association with: Organizations: www.boernecancerfonden.dk and www.mistetbarn.dk
Where can I watch it next and in the coming month? Flickerfest Mon 15 Jan, 6.30pm and will be online from March onwards.