Strasbourg, France
Sep 14 - 19 2010
Lund, Sweden
Sep 23 - Oct 2 2010
Sitges, Spain
Oct 7 - 17 2010
Leeds, United Kingdom
Nov 4 - 21 2010
Trieste, Italy
Nov 10 - 14 2010
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Apr 2011
Brussels, Belgium
Apr 2011
Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Jul 2011
Espoo, Finland
Aug 2011
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Dublin, Ireland
Oct 2010
San Sebastian, Spain
Oct 30 - Nov 5 2010
Aberystwyth, Wales
Nov 10 - 14 2010
Nantes, France
Nov 10 - 14 2010
Malaga, Spain
Nov 11 - 19 2010
Riga, Latvia
Feb - Mar 2011
London, Uk
Aug 2011
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Austin, USA
Sep 23 - 30 2010
Los Angeles, USA
Oct 2010
Montreal, Canada
Jul 2011
Puchon, South Korea
Jul 2011
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This interview was conducted at Espoo Ciné where Strings won the Méliès d'Argent in August. Anders Rønnow-Klarlund was interviewed by Tuomas Riskala.
T: “Strings” is a very unique fantasy film, made in a very unique way. How did the idea come to you?
A: I was sitting in an airplane on my way to Portugal and the Golden Méliès ceremony in Fantasporto, and I was watching this city promo about Prague. It had some marionette puppets in it, and I was immediately fascinated by the strings they had and also the expressions they could display. I drew this sketch about a marionette fleeing its enemies, climbing up on a tree, while you could see the thousand strings around him closing in and going up to the sky. I thought - “this is an image I haven’t seen before.” So I promised myself that if I won the Golden Méliès Award for Possessed, my previous film, “Strings” would be my next project. A few days later I was accepting the award.
T: How big of a challenge was it to create something like this in Scandinavia?
A: It didn’t feel really uphill; it was only securing the last bit of financing which felt a little tricky. The budget was originally very low, around 14 million Danish crowns, but it grew to be 35 million as the project expanded, I did more sketches and we brought in an extra crew to be able to stay in schedule. But it really didn’t feel too difficult as everybody was so enthusiastic all the time. My philosophy with the financing was that every month I would show something new to the money people who came in: a new character design, storyboards, etc. We did huge production design sketches and the art direction department was working at least one and a half year straight on. The puppeteers we found all over the world and it took actually two years to find them.
T: After being so successful with “Possessed”, was it clear to do another fantasy film?
A: I’m not a genre freak. Choosing a genre comes when you come up with the story. “Strings” is very much about the world we live in right now. It’s a contemporary story about people being suppressed, calling somebody your enemy and then crawling out with your big army to crush them, and in the end finding out that the only enemy is the enemy within yourself.
It is a very contemporary story about Iraq, the whole Middle-East situation, Americans, and all that stuff. Had I done that as a normal, realistic film, as a war film for instance, it would have been difficult as the whole war situation is very fragile, there is lot of details and people have lot of different opinions. I had to choose a genre where I could tell the story in a simpler manner. It is the storytelling tradition of Hans Christian Andersen, that when you tell a fairy-tale, you tell about something that is going on today, but you do it in a way that isn’t offending anybody.
Choosing a film genre is like when an author is choosing a style. Certain things go together with the subject you’re dealing with. With “Strings”, fantasy was the answer.
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