Armand, as seen by Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel

What inspired you to begin work on this film?

It often starts with a character for me, and then I try to find out where to place them. And this film started with Elisabeth’s character, played by Renate Reinsve. I heard a story from someone who had been on a camping trip with his class, they were six years old and there had been a conflict between two of the boys, when suddenly one of them had become very aggressive and said something that a little boy normally wouldn’t know anything about. And I was thinking, where and how did this six-year-old learn that kind of language? Then my fantasy started to spin out into what his parents must have been like etc.  and I was very intrigued on how much I could imagine about the parents without knowing anything about them or the boy, but just with that little nugget of information of what he had said and done. I have also worked in a primary school for many years and experienced how we mirror children with their parents, for better or worse. And how all behaviour (from kids or parents) that’s even slightly outside of the norm is almost frowned paid very close attention to. Eventually it became obvious for me that there was a film here where I could say something about our society, how we deal with conflict, but even more importantly: this film could platform the characters I had in mind.

Please describe your working method and the atmosphere on set. Anecdotes welcome.

It was a very intense shoot, so we did quite a lot of rehearsals beforehand because we needed to be prepared for all the dialogue-heavy scenes. We shot the film in chronological order, which was very cool to do, and very good for the whole feel of the film. We kind of let go when the rehearsals were over and the shooting started, and started to embrace the craziness. I loved that. But it was too intense at times, and we all went a little bit mad inside the same school, day in and day out. I had nosebleeds every morning before shooting, which was kind of strange because it also crops up in the film. I have a movie on my iPhone of me bleeding A LOT from my nose with the composed music playing over the top. That sums it up.

What would you like people to take away from your film?

That dancing and talking go hand in hand. Also: be kind with each other, and be careful about judging other people. I also hope the feel of the film lingers with people.

What made you want to become a director? What are your influences?

It was a slow-burning process. I didn’t want to work with film at all when I was in my early 20s. But then I did some filmmaking for one of my modules at university (which I didn’t know was part of the course), and it was so fun that I applied to film school, and then I never looked back. It is truly the greatest privilege to be on set and see everything come alive.

I have really eclectic taste, and I embrace that in my filmmaking as well. For this film my biggest influences were Thomas Vinterberg, Luis Buñuel, Isabella Eklöf and Brian De Palma.

A movie you want to recommend? And why?

Angst (1983) by Gerard Kargl. Also a debut feature. I am very inspired by it. So much bravery, so many ideas, so interestingly executed. It became his only film for reasons I don’t know. It has some sequences that are truly mind-blowing. But despite the very heavy and grotesque plot, the film also finds room for some humour. Very impressive.