Copenhagen-based DR Sales, the international distributor of Oscar-winning doc “Mr Nobody Against Putin” and Sundance winner “A New Kind of Wilderness,” has boarded Denmark’s “Father’s House,” starring David Dencik (“No Time to Die,” “The Chestnut Man”) and Trine Dyrholm (“The Danish Woman,” “Queen of Hearts”). Selected for the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival international documentary competition and IDFA’s Signed section, “Father’s House” sees Dencik and Dyrholm acting in the reenactment scenes of a film which homes in on manipulation in a religious sect. Once we saw the first cut, we were all blown away by how powerful and original the film is,” said DR Sales Executive Producer Kim Christiansen.
A distinctive mix of fiction, documentary and making off, “Father’s House” (“Faderhuset”) looks at manipulation, abuse and often violence inside the radical Danish Christian sect Faderhuset, as three former members expose the inner workings of the now defunct sect where exorcism and speaking in tongues and militant Christianity were, reportedly, part of everyday life. Defining moments in the lives of the three characters within that closed sect are brought back to life via reenactments from established actors, under the guidance of the real former members. Dyrholm plays the charismatic leader Ruth Evensen (now Ruth Kristiansen) who led Fathers House since the 1990s until its official closure as a religious congregation in 2013.
Dencik is the former member Jerry and Laura Kronborg Kjær (“A Fortunate Man,” “When the Sun Shines”) Camilla who stayed seven years within Father’s House before breaking away and setting up the NGO-InsideOut to help people leave such sectarian communities. Why Bring in Trine Dyrholm and David Dencik?Mulvad told Variety that the starting point to the film was a book written by former member Camilla Louise Johnson which sparked her interest in “cults, group dynamics and why people in a free world long to belong,” to the extent of surrendering their own lives. Depicted by Mulvad as “an important gatekeeper” throughout the filmmaking process, Camilla then introduced the directors to other former members of the sect who “shared their experience in a generous way” and contributed to the script.
To avoid getting into “the long and lonely process of being a documentary director,” Mulvad rallied to her idea Koefoed, once the film’s hybrid concept was in place. Quizzed about their choice to mix fiction and documentary, the co-helmers said, “What interested us most were the bizarre, insider stories from Father’s House. However, since no footage of those moments existed, we knew we didn’t want to rely on a traditional, interview-driven documentary.
At the same time, we wanted to avoid a standard fiction film that forces real human experiences into a rigid plot. We wanted the best of both worlds.” As an editor, Nielsen took inspiration from his work on Kaspar Astrup’s documentary “The Invention of Dr. Nakamats” in which the eccentric Japanese inventor wanted to fictionalise a moment from his childhood, staging a scene with actors, while directing it himself on camera.“It was incredibly funny and surreal, and that meta-layered approach stayed with Adam,” said the co-helmers who were also inspired by a similar hybrid form in Kaouther Ben Haria’s “Four Daughters.” “We realised this approach could unlock our own narrative, so we decided to test it,” they said, outlining their technique.
The dynamic between Camilla and the actors was electric, but the test also revealed something deeper: it became a profound way to expose how we manipulate reality when making films, whether fiction or documentary. By pulling back the curtain on our own process, the hybrid style allowed us to break free from a linear timeline and instead build the film around a purely emotional and psychological structure,” said the directing trio. The collaborative script was written in different steps, with the co-helmers adapting their fiction material to the real scenes depicted in detail by the former sect members, while the actors had to learn a new [religious] language, “where God, devil, praise, angels and so on take a dominant space.” “The material we got was rich and crazy,” said the filmmakers who decided “to look for dilemmas in the scenes, moments where the ex-members had to give up themselves to gain the trust of the leader or the group, moments of friction and existential doubt.” Asked about their personal take on Father’s House, Mulvad, Koefoed and Nielsen said, “Honestly, Father’s House isn’t fundamentally worse than many other religious sects or cults throughout history.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
