By Lucy Spicer
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 2025 Sundance Film Festival through the art that these storytellers share with us, there's always more we can learn about them as people. We decided to get to the bottom of those artistic wells with our ongoing series: Give Me the Backstory!
Emilie Blichfeldt was a teenager before her love of film could ignite. I grew up in a tiny village above the Arctic Circle on the rough coast of northern Norway. My parents were all about books. We got our first VHS player combined with a DVD player when I was 13. That's when I had my first big film experience. I watched Am lie on repeat! recounts the filmmaker. I moved from home when I was 16 to attend a high school with a drama course. I borrowed films at the library based on which actors were in them, which I then watched in my little room. That's when I stumbled over this Nicole Kidman movie: Dogville by Lars von Trier. I was totally spellbound. I thought, If this is cinema, then I want in!' It seems fitting Blichfeldt would end up premiering her own debut feature at the Sundance Film Festival - 21 years after Dogville screened at the Festival in 2004.
Blichfeldt's explosive feature debut, The Ugly Stepsister, premiered on day one of the 2025 Festival. Inspired by the gruesome details in the Brothers Grimm version of Cinderella, Blichfeldt decided to build her film around Elvira (Lea Myren), stepsister to the beautiful Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch N ss). When her family's financial future becomes precarious after her stepfather's sudden death, Elvira is instructed by her mother to take all steps necessary to make herself beautiful in order to catch the prince's eye and secure a marriage proposal. What follows is a series of drastic decisions and horrifying procedures that leave no room for doubt as to why The Ugly Stepsister was allocated to the Sundance Film Festival's Midnight section.
And though the film's body horror may appear extreme, Elvira's desperate bid for beauty comes from a hunger for acceptance that is far from fantasy and still lives in girls and women today - a hunger that cosmetic procedures, editing softwares, the weight loss industry, and more so graciously wish to address for a price. In a time where body pressure is a major issue, I hope The Ugly Stepsister will be a source of inspiration and create new language and understanding, says Blichfeldt.
Read on to learn more about Blichfeldt and her stomach-turning fairy tale, including her fond memories of working with costume designer Manon Masmussen and her advice to other early-career filmmakers.
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