Lone Scherfig

She forms a unique tandem with Susanne Bier , with many similarities, and certainly the most important female film duo in Denmark. Faithful to their country’s cinematographic heritage, the two make powerful cinema, based on complex characters, who deeply experience dramas or tragedies with little room for laughter and, above all, for frivolity. Although she began with a lighter and more familiar cinema, over the years Lone Scherfig has been leaning towards the serious. She can serve humor, but she will always be the tragicomic wrapper of the existential problems that surround every human being.

Born in Copenhagen on May 2, 1959, Lone Wrede Scherfig studied film at the Danish Film School, graduating in 1984. She made her behind-the-scenes debut in 1990 with Kaj’s Fødselsdag , whose translation into Spanish would be something like “The Birthday of Kaj”. The film was successful at several festivals and brought notoriety to the then young 29-year-old director. She then wrote and worked on some short films and shot movies and series for television. Among her telefilms are Den gode Lykke (1993) and the family film Når mor kommer hjem (1998); As for the series, her best creation is perhaps the family Morten Korch-Ved stillebækken (2000), which successfully ran on the air for two seasons.

But Scherfig’s career changed completely in 2000, when he joined the Dogma movement created by his countryman Lars von Trier . Scherfig delivered the film Italian for Beginners , a surprising film due to its staging and realistic shots, which narrated a peculiar romance between shy people who study Italian in cold Copenhagen. The director, who also wrote the script, proved to handle the actors very well and received twenty awards, and especially triumphed at the Berlin Festival. A new Danish talent was born.

Two years later he continued with the tragic and comic tone at the same time in the more humorous Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself , written in collaboration with the brilliant screenwriter Anders Thomas Jensen ( After the Wedding ). Scherfig talks about the fears of our time and the absurd fears invented by modernity, with a proposal that wants to give one dramatic lesson at a time. The cast is excellent and the awards also rained down, although to a lesser extent. After her, Scherfig embarked on a curious project together with the screenwriter Jensen, “Advance Party”. It was about inspiring three films from the same characters created by them. The first film resulting from the project is the hard-hitting Red Road. In 2007 she directed a minor comedy, Hjemve , which had little impact.

And the big bombshell came in 2009, when he made the international leap with the film An Education , a translation to the screen of a script by the British novelist Nick Hornby based on an autobiographical article by Lynn Barber . The film featured an actress-turned-overnight star, Carey Mulligan , whose character fell in love with a man much older than her to the stupefaction of her family. The film, of great international impact, was nominated for 3 Oscars.

And in his latest film to date, One Day (Always the same day) , Scherfig returns to one of his key themes, that of difficult relationships, love and incomprehensible and contradictory affections. The director narrates the love-friendship relationship between a man and a woman over 20 years. The best are undoubtedly the performances of its protagonists, Jim Sturgess and Anne Hathaway , wisely guided by the Danish director.