One of the darkest and most timely additions to the Oscar race for Best International Feature is Magnus von Horn‘s “The Girl with the Needle” from Denmark. The black-and-white drama, set for release from MUBI later this year, tells the story of one of the country’s most notorious serial killers: Dagmar Overbye, a woman who murdered between nine and 25 infants during the early 1920s. But what sets this powerful drama apart is that it’s told through the eyes of one of Overbye’s proteges, Karlone (Vic Carmen Sonne), a wet nurse who unwittingly assists Dagmar in her operation. Watch the trailer, an IndieWire exclusive, below.
Per MUBI’s synopsis, “Struggling to survive in post-WWI Copenhagen, a pregnant young factory worker is taken in by a charismatic woman to help run an underground adoption agency. A deep connection forms between them, until an unthinkable discovery changes everything.”
This dark fairy tale’s strong visuals and largely female ensemble (Vic Carmen Sonne gives an understated performance as a woman caught under Overbye’s sway) captivated audiences at Cannes, where “The Girl with the Needle” competed for the Palme d’Or earlier this year. Trine Dyrholm co-leads as Dagmar, whose sinister true intentions under a clandestine adoption agency emerge later in the film. And if you’re not keen on Danish true crime history, you’ll be shocked at the proceedings.
On the below-the-line side, “The Girl with the Needle” boasts cinematography from Michał Dymek, who shot both 2023 Polish Oscar entry “EO” and this year’s “A Real Pain.” Frederikke Hoffmeier (aka Puce Mary) provides an eerie score, and Magnus von Horn co-wrote the script with Line Langebeck from extensive historical research.
“The Girl with the Needle” marked Magnus von Horn’s first time in Cannes’ main competition after “The Here After” competed for the Camera d’Or in 2015. His follow-up feature, “Sweat,” about a fitness instructor seeking intimate connections, would’ve debuted at Cannes were the festival not canceled due to the pandemic in May 2020.
More from IndieWire’s Cannes review of “The Girl with the Needle”: The film “is curious about the characters forged by crushing, patriarchy-inflicted disappointments. Indeed, it sides with those characters with imaginative framing. This comes through in an ambient atonal soundtrack by Frederikke Hoffmeier that lifts the dirty backstreets of Copenhagen into the realm of modern folklore… A different kind of provocateur would let the film rely on its sordid twist, like Lars von Trier taking a hammer to his dollhouses. Von Horn, however, cares for his characters and each is allowed a hardwon grace note. One leaves the cinema entertained and reeling, very unsure of what in any other context would be so easy to judge.”
MUBI releases “The Girl with the Needle” in select theaters on Friday, December 6 before eventually streaming on the platform.
