By Bailey Pennick
One of the most exciting things about the Sundance Film Festival is having a front-row seat for the bright future of independent filmmaking. While we can learn a lot about the filmmakers from the 2024 Sundance Film Festival through the art that these storytellers share with us, there's always more we can learn about them as people. This year, we decided to get to the bottom of those artistic wells with our ongoing series: Give Me the Backstory!
Thea Hvistendahl's debut feature film Handling the Undead lives in the blurred lines between grief, hope, and terror. This complexity is woven into the film's DNA, which premiered in the World Cinematic Dramatic Competition at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival (and won a Special Jury Award for Original Music). Handing the Undead follows three families as they grapple with the unfathomable event of recently passed loved ones being reanimated - as well as the repercussions of that reality.
The film exists in this strange emotional space against the backdrop of Oslo, Norway, but through understated performances and stark visuals, Handling the Undead is more human than zombie. Hvistendahl gives John Ajvide Lindqvist's novel of the same name credit for setting such a unique and textured tone. The book hit me really hard, the writer-director explains. The fact that it was both heartbreaking and unsettling at the same time was something that really intrigued me. I also found it difficult to find other films that were playing on both those emotions, which gave me even more inspiration to try and make that work. I'm really into atmosphere, mood, and sensations that can't be communicated other than through a cinematic experience, so trying to achieve that was my main inspiration I think.
The desire for this interplay is fitting for Hvistendahl, who counts the works of David Lynch and Pedro Almodovar as her original gateways into filmmaking. I loved their visuality and the cinematic experience that comes out of [that]. They opened my eyes to the world of films, she says.
Below learn more about the biggest challenges the Norwegian faced while making Handling the Undead, her advice for fellow filmmakers, and why movies are so important to her.
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By Bailey Pennick
