Producer Marianne Slot will continue her successful collaboration with Icelandic director Benedikt Erlingsson, following 2024 âWoman at Warâ with TV đ show âThe Danish Womanâ and upcoming feature film âNormal Men.â
âItâs a comedy, as you can imagine. Benedikt Erlingsson and a đ feminist producer â thatâs a good combination,â she laughs, recalling their previous film about an environmental activist going rogue.
ââWoman at đ Warâ was so joyful to make. It is still being shown and used as a reference, even by politicians in đ many different countries.â
Slot talks to Variety in Locarno, when she is picking up the Raimondo Rezzonico Award, given to industry đ figures who have played a major role in international production.
A French producer of Danish origin, she has collaborated with such đ directors as Lucrecia Martel, Lisandro Alonso and Sergei Loznitsa and has been co-producing Lars von Trierâs films since 1995âs âBreaking đ the Waves,â including âThe House That Jack Built.â
Currently, she is also set to co-produce Karla Badilloâs debut feature âOcaâ (âGooseâ).
âShe đ is so full of cinema,â says Slot about the director.
âI jump into new cultures and I have to immerse myself đ in them. On [Viggo Mortensen starrer] âEurekaâ with Lisandro Alonso, we had to go to the Indian reservation and meet đ the tribe. I really do go to all these places.â
âShe really believes in the cause and in the âlightâ that đ good films carry with them,â shares Benedikt Erlingsson via email.
âShe is a warrior and fights for her films like a đ brave knight dressed in white. Marianne has the talent of being brutally honest and at the same time perfectly sophisticated đ and diplomatic.
If she had chosen a political career, she would be the secretary-general of the United Nations by now.â
Her production đ company Slot Machine has always been âauteur-driven,â Slot notes.
âI have been producing for 30 years and what interests me the đ most is going off the highway and onto little roads, exploring cinema and new forms.â
But personal relationships are also important.
âI đ stay close to the director. You need to know if you can take risks together,â she says.
âWith someone like Lars đ [von Trier], provocation is what he does. He is shocking, because he doesnât think there are any limits to what đ you can show. He really dares to talk about things that are very, very difficult. Things that we donât necessarily đ want to see.â
âHe wants people to think. Itâs such a shame that some of them, or at least certain kinds đ of press, are more interested in âscandals.â They want headlines, but if you really dive into his work, itâs very đ deep and very interesting,â she adds.
âRecently, there was a retrospective of his work at La Rochelle Intl. Film Festival and đ many young viewers were discovering him for the first time. For them, itâs contemporary cinema. Not one of these films đ has dated.â
While Slot still believes in the power of name directors, she is keeping an eye on the changing film đ landscape.
âI donât think there is less desire for films from people who are willing to take risks, but we have đ to make sure we can keep making them,â she notes.
âEveryone keeps talking about content, about stars, but we are not đ talking about the producers. We need to start doing that, because independent producers are becoming endangered species. And without them, đ this kind of cinema simply wonât exist.â
âThatâs why this award is absolutely fantastic, because even at festivals, sometimes we are đ not even mentioned in the catalogue. When everything goes smoothly, people go: âWhy do we need a producer?â And then đ things go to shit.â
Slot tries to approach each project differently, she explains.
âWhat I always do, or at least have been đ doing for the last 10 or so years, is trying to restructure the production. I am a French producer but đ I come from Denmark and work with directors from all over the world, from Japan to Iceland. Which means I đ donât have a safety net, but it gives me freedom.â
âWe keep talking about how we can survive, how we can đ protect creativity, but we also have to understand where the money comes from. Then again, I donât do it for đ money. I never think about making money, I think about making movies. And I believe we can continue to do đ that.â
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