Introduction

The Girl with the Needle (Danish: Pigen med nålen) is a 2024 historical psychological horror film directed by Magnus von Horn, from a screenplay written by von Horn and Line Langebek.

Set in 1919, the film stars Vic Carmen Sonne as a young woman who begins working as a wet nurse at a secretive adoption agency for disadvantaged mothers, but who grows suspicious of the woman who runs the operation. It is very loosely based on the true story of Danish serial killer Dagmar Overbye.

Outline

In 1919 Copenhagen, Karoline is evicted from her apartment and forced to move into squalid conditions. She is unable to apply for widow’s compensation because her husband Peter, who has not written back to her since leaving to fight in the war, has not officially been declared dead. Karoline works as a seamstress with her friend Frida and begins a romantic relationship with her boss Jørgen. Karoline becomes pregnant and Jørgen plans to marry her. Karoline visits Jørgen’s mother, a wealthy woman who strongly disapproves of Karoline. She has a doctor perform a check on Karoline to see if she is actually pregnant before humiliating Jørgen and forbidding him from marrying her. Jørgen sends Karoline away, ending their relationship and she is fired from her seamstress job. Peter returns from the war, wearing a mask to hide his severely mutilated face. Karoline is disgusted and treats him coldly. Peter is besieged with psychotic episodes while Karoline struggles to find work.

While at a public bathhouse, Karoline attempts to perform an abortion on herself with a needle but is stopped by a woman called Dagmar and her daughter Erena. Dagmar treats Karoline’s wounds and instructs her to bring the baby to her sweet shop once it is born. While working at a factory, Karoline ends up giving birth. Peter wants to care for the child but Karoline states that it is not his and Peter is later kicked out of Karoline’s room. Karoline brings the baby to Dagmar’s sweet shop where she learns Dagmar is taking babies off mothers and giving them to foster families. Karoline pays Dagmar but is only able to pay half the fee, promising to pay the rest later, before leaving her baby at the shop. Peter takes up work at a circus where he is paraded around as a freak. Karoline visits him and goes up on stage, kissing his destroyed face before leaving.

Karoline returns to the sweet shop, unable to pay the rest of the fee but wanting to work for Dagmar. As Karoline is still lactating, Dagmar reluctantly agrees to let her be a wet nurse for the babies being dropped off at the sweet shop. Karoline starts living at the shop and eventually settles into her new life, befriending Erena and breastfeeding her, although she is uneasy around Dagmar’s occasional male suitor Svendsen. Karoline notices Dagmar is elusive and vague about where the babies are going. One night, Erena attempts to breastfeed from Karoline but Karoline refuses as she is currently breastfeeding a baby she has grown attached to. Erena attempts to smother the baby but Karoline fends her off. The next day, Karoline awakens to see Dagmar carrying the baby away in a pram. Suspicious, Karoline follows her and is horrified to witness Dagmar throttling the baby to death in an alley before dumping its body in the sewer. Back at the sweet shop, Karoline confronts Dagmar who admits to killing all the babies she has collected, not wanting to bring something so innocent into a cruel world. Dagmar doses Karoline with ether.

Dagmar continues to dose Karoline with ether, making her near bedbound. Frida, having learned of Dagmar’s services from Karoline, drops her own unwanted baby off with them but grows uneasy when she glimpses a disoriented Karoline. Dagmar tries to get Karoline to kill the baby but the two fight, accidentally smothering the baby to death. Later, Frida returns regretting her choice and wanting her baby back, threatening to call the police if the baby is not returned. As Dagmar panics, Karoline jumps out of a window to her supposed death. Police apprehend Dagmar and take Erena to an orphanage. Karoline is revealed to have survived her fall and goes to the travelling circus that Peter now lives with. The two reconcile and Karoline is weaned off ether. She lies to Peter about the fate of her child. Dagmar is tried in court for her crimes and imprisoned. Sometime later, Karoline adopts Erena from the orphanage.

Cast

• Vic Carmen Sonne as Karoline
• Trine Dyrholm as Dagmar
• Besir Zeciri as Peter
• Joachim Fjelstrup as Jørgen
• Tessa Hoder as Frida
• Avo Knox Martin as Erena
• Anders Hove as the Judge
• Ari Alexander as Svendsen

Production

The Girl with the Needle is Magnus von Horn’s third feature after The Here After (2015) and Sweat (2020). He wrote the screenplay with Line Langebek. It is very loosely based on the true story of Danish serial killer Dagmar Overbye, who manipulated impoverished mothers into leaving their unwanted children in her care, as adoptees, and subsequently murdered them. She was first sentenced to death in 1921, but it was later changed into a lifetime in prison. Overbye remains Denmark’s most prolific serial killer. Von Horn described the film as a “fairy tale for grownups” and was motivated “not to just make a straight genre piece [but] to flirt with genre. That became a great lens to look at the story, for me and the cinematographer and the set designers and the costumes.”

The film was produced by Malene Blenkov for Nordisk Film Denmark and Mariusz Wlodarski for Lava Films (Poland), in co-production with Nordisk Film Sweden.

Release

The Girl with the Needle was selected to compete for the Palme d’Or at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where it had its world premiere on 15 May 2024. It made its North American premiere in the Special Presentations section at the 49th Toronto International Film Festival on 05 September 2024. The film has also been selected for the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival 2024, where it will be screened under the World Cinema section.

International sales were handled by The Match Factory, whose parent Mubi acquired distribution rights to the film for North and Latin America, United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Turkey and India a few days after its premiere. The film premiered in New York and Los Angeles on 6 December 2024. Gutek Film is set to distribute the film in Poland on 17 January 2025, under the title Dziewczyna z igłą. Nordisk Film Distribution is set to release the film in Denmark on 23 January 2025.

Trivia

• On 19 September 2024, the film was announced as Denmark’s submission for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards, and made the December shortlist, before being nominated for the Academy Award on 23 January 2025.

Production & Filming Details

• Director(s):
  • Magnus von Horn
• Producer(s):
  • Malene Blenkov … producer
  • Madeleine Ekman … co-producer
  • Søren Frimodt-Møller … production department: development
  • Rikke Katborg … production department: development
  • Kristina Kornum … production department: development
  • Lea Løbger … production department: development
  • Deborah Bayer Marlow … line producer
  • Calle Marthin … executive producer
  • Lone Scherfig … executive producer
  • Katrine Vogelsang … executive producer
  • Mariusz Wlodarski … producer
  • Henrik Zein … executive producer
• Writer(s):
  • Line Langebek Knudsen … (screenplay)
  • Magnus von Horn … (screenplay)
• Music:
  • Frederikke Hoffmeier
• Cinematography:
  • Michal Dymek
• Editor(s):
  • Agnieszka Glinska
• Production:
  • Nordisk Film Production
  • Creative Alliance (Nordisk Film Creative Alliance)
  • Lava Films
  • Nordisk Film Production
  • Film i Väst (co-producer)
  • EC1 Lódz – Miasto Kultury (co-producer)
  • Lower Silesia Film Centre (co-producer)
  • Danmarks Radio (DR) (in association with)
  • Sveriges Television (SVT) (in association with)
  • Det Danske Filminstitut (support)
  • Polski Instytut Sztuki Filmowej (support)
  • Svenska Filminstitutet (SFI) (support)
  • Eurimages (support)
  • Nordisk Film & TV-Fond (support)
  • MEDIA Programme of the European Union (Creative Europe Media, support)
  • Dolnoslaskie Centrum Filmowe (support)
• Distributor(s):
  • Asdo Films
  • Bac Films
  • Films4You
  • Green Narae Media
  • Gutek Films
  • MUBI
  • MegaCom Film (MCF)
  • Mer Film
  • NonStop Entertainment
  • Nordisk Film Distribution
  • Scanorama
  • September Film Distribution
  • Transformer
  • Weird Wave
  • Falcon Pictures
  • KlikFilm
• Release Date: 15 May 2024 (Cannes Film Festival, France).
• Running Time: 123 minutes.
• Rating: Not Rated.
• Country:
• Language:

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