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FUTURE FRAMES 2021

Glen Bay Grant • Director of True Mirror

“We were fascinated by the (almost empty) phrase ‘finding yourself’ and the kind of people who preach this”

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- The Danish director comes to EFP’s Future Frames at the 55th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival for the world premiere of his short

Glen Bay Grant • Director of True Mirror

Glen Bay Grant studied at the Super16 independent film school in his native Denmark, and already has a number of shorts and documentaries under his belt, as well as having helmed episodes of several series from Danish national broadcaster DR.

His latest short True Mirror, which will have its world premiere as part of European Film Promotion’s Future Frames at the 55th edition of Karlovy Vary, is a precise and sharp psychological exploration of a mother and a son. Jacqueline, who works as a relationship coach, is used to controlling everything. So when her son tells her that he wants more independence, things begin to spiral out of control. We asked Glen Bay Grant about self-help and the origins of the film.

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Cineuropa: How did True Mirror come about?
Glen Bay Grant: Actually, the scriptwriter, Marianne Lentz, and I were writing a film about post-colonialism and modern-day tourism. We had already been on a research trip to Vietnam, but then COVID-19 struck and we had to rethink the whole film. True Mirror is not in any way about post-colonialism or tourism, but I guess there were some traits from the original character that inspired us in the creation of the main character in True Mirror.

The coaching and self-help industry talks a lot about finding yourself or finding inner peace, and this was the same thing the character in the tourism film tried to do by travelling, so we were quite fascinated by this (almost empty) phrase “finding yourself” and the kind of people who preach this: especially those who didn’t believe in it. So this and a lot of personal talks about our complicated relationship with our parents were the mixture that made the film.

While the movie is ostensibly about individual human fallibility and jealousy, it also delves deep into the world of therapy and self-help.
In the process of making the film, we watched a lot of TEDx talks and talked to different self-help coaches. One thing they all had in common was that they had these “strong” sentences or catchphrases that seemed to cure all problems, like our main characters: “…You have to love yourself before you can love others.” So this is not inspired by one certain self-help guru, but more inspired by the essence of self-help methods. I think it’s important to state that I don’t find self-help ridiculous: I respect it and know it can help a lot of people. But I think it’s dangerous when the people in power don’t believe in their methods and end up exploiting more vulnerable people, like the main character in our film.

How did you cast the mother-and-son protagonists?
Line Kruse
is a very experienced actor in Denmark, and Noah had only had two roles in other films, and had never been to acting school. So I liked the idea of the actors being at complete opposites in terms of experience, because this would also match the social hierarchy of their weird boss/assistant and mother/son relationship in the movie. I used these differences in experiences as a directing method, where normally, I would tell Line to lead the scene, but sometimes I would tell Noah to lead it without Line knowing, and this gave these sudden, unpleasant reactions from Line that I found very important for some of the key scenes in the film.

You’re heading to Karlovy Vary for Future Frames.
I think programmes like Future Frames are very important because it’s a way for filmmakers to learn about film through people who are kind of at the same stage in their career, but also to learn about their ideology and the battles they are fighting in their life – on a social and a personal level – that can help give you new perspectives.

What are you working on next?
I’m currently working on my first feature. It is in the development process, so there are a lot of Post-its and unfinished ideas floating around. But the core of the idea is about the fear of becoming like your parents – in this case, a son who is afraid of becoming like his dad, whom he hates.

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