Written and directed by Swedish-Polish director and screenwriter Magnus von Horn (The Here After, Sweat), The Girl with the Needle is a period horror-drama that plays out like a dark fairy tale, with elements that feel simultaneously familiar and modern, eerie and exquisite. This is due in no small part to its haunting score by Frederikke Hoffmeier a.k.a. Puce Mary and gorgeous cinematography by Michał Dymek. In fact, the film took home the Camerimage Film Festival’s Golden Frog in Toruń, Poland last year, beating out Lol Crawley’s work on the artistic epic (and Oscar Best Picture frontrunner) The Brutalist.
The Girl with the Needle is set in Copenhagen at the end of the First World War and follows a young factory worker named Karoline (Vic Carmen Sonne), who is struggling to survive in the absence of her husband, Peter (Besir Zeciri). Deemed missing in action and presumed dead, Peter’s sudden re-emergence finds Karoline even worse off than before: unemployed, pregnant, and desperate. It is in this state that Karoline crosses paths with a mysterious woman named Dagmar (Trine Dyrholm) who offers Karoline a solution to her troubles.
