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 Amélie 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 Næss). 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.
What was the biggest inspiration behind The Ugly Stepsister?
When I read the Brothers Grimm version of Cinderella as a grown-up, where one stepsister cuts off her toes to fit the impossibly small shoe, suddenly this overlooked character stood out like a sore toe. I saw myself in her. So, obviously, that version of the fairy tale has meant a lot for the film. But I decided early to not be true to only one version, but rather to pick what I found interesting and fun from all of them and feel free to put my own spin on it. After all, it’s a made-up story, a folktale carried from generation to generation through oral storytelling.
Other than the cutting of the toes and Cinderella’s magic being rooted in her dead mother, it is mostly the gothic and tactile nature of the Grimms’ version I have been inspired by. The stepsisters in the Brothers Grimm version are actually described as beautiful on the outside, and ugly on the inside.
It was Walt Disney who, based on the French version by Charles Perrault, popularized the notion that inner and outer beauty are inherently linked — if you are pretty, you are kind, and if you are ugly, you are mean. It is Disney’s version that has made the strongest mark on our collective consciousness, and especially on how we see the stepsisters.
Visually, there is this obscure but beautiful Czech film version from the ’70s, loved as national treasures in Norway and Germany, that I am very inspired by. That film was the gateway into a deeper research and love relationship with Eastern European fairy-tale cinema from the 1960s and ’70s. With their gritty realism, gothic locations, practical effects, and natural lighting, they feel real and unreal at the same time. They create this uncanny enchanted realism that I very much wanted for the film.
The film’s comprehensive concept of “beauty horror” was inspired by body horror and the masochistic doctrine of “beauty is pain.” It is David Cronenberg’s approach to the genre I’m interested in: Bodily transformations serve as metaphors for his characters’ flaws, dilemmas, and inner fears, or even as a political comment on how society affects the individual.
Describe who you want The Ugly Stepsister to reach.
I made this film for young Emilie, who had big feet and a low confidence around boys. I made this film for all the young girls who struggle under the burden of feeling ugly. But I hope this film reaches far beyond that. The issue of what is considered beautiful concerns us all. Both as bodies and as gaze.
Tell us an anecdote about casting or working with your actors.
As it is a fairy tale, I wanted actors that had a big range, who could go absurd, heightened, but at the same time not lose touch with the real and the humanity of the character. I’m very open to what the character might look like and what way they may be conveyed before casting. The character comes alive in the auditions through the actor. The casting process for the main parts was hard, until, suddenly, the right people showed up.
The big revelation for me in this cast is unsurprisingly Lea Myren as Elvira, the stepsister. From the first audition, I was spellbound. For the first time, I SAW Elvira. She impressed me with her unpretentious, raw physicality, her comic timing, and her commitment to the work. I knew she was the one. But it was only later that I found out what a gift she really was. Her totally devoted and fearless embodiment of Elvira through her nativity and dreams to her insanity, pain, and puke is one for the history books. Lea is the epitome of who I could have been and what I could have dared to do as a 20-something-year-old if I had not struggled so much with my body image. She is a role model and gives me hope for the generations of girls and women to come.
Your favorite part of making the film? Memories from the process?
I love so many aspects of filmmaking and was lucky to get to play with a lot of them during this production: costumes, props, creating characters with the actors and hair and makeup, storyboarding, the design of the prosthetics and makeup effects, and even dance sequences. One of my favorite parts of all of this was getting to work closely with master craftsmen within each department. I love getting my hands dirty. It allows me to feel the physical reality of each department, to really understand the tools and limits that my heads of department work with.
One example is when I went to London with my costume designer, Manon Rasmussen. She’s really a legend. She has designed costumes for all Lars von Trier’s movies and has won [the Robert Award for Best Costume Design] 17 (!!!) times. We went to Cosprop, one of the leading costume houses in the world, where Manon is a regular. Manon had warned me that pulling costumes would be hard work. She told me she had had surgery because of the wear and tear on her shoulders caused by carrying heavy costumes and pushing on the insanely tightly stacked racks. I thought I would be her young and strong muscle, but after just a few hours, I realized that I had underestimated the task. I was exhausted, and my shoulders hurt like hell. I hope Manon was less tired than she otherwise would have been.
It was the first time we met in person, and Manon frankly told me that she had never worked with a director so invested in the costume design and not even thought of the possibility that I would ask to come with her to pull costumes. The journey made us form a bond of trust and was a great opportunity to connect our minds. Later, in fittings, if something was presented to us, we would at the exact same time give the same response. What a thrill! Manon said very sweetly the last time I saw her, “I don’t know how much more work I have in me, but if you or Lars calls, I’m there.” What a compliment!
Why does this story need to be told now?
The industry that creates and exploits our insecurity when it comes to appearance is stealing more and more of our time and money and is undermining our self-worth.
If you weren’t a filmmaker, what would you be doing?
If I had been born with different knees, I would for sure be a dancer.
What is something that all filmmakers should keep in mind in order to become better cinematic storytellers?
There are a lot of practical and technical things that are said to be important to master to become a good filmmaker, but I think the most important thing to figure out is what stories you want to tell and why. And just as important, to cultivate your taste and find out what makes you tick. Also! Read A Director Prepares by Anne Bogart.
Who are your creative heroes?
David Cronenberg, Claire Denis, Agnès Varda, Lars von Trier, Lynne Ramsay, Walerian Borowczyk, David Lynch, Wong Kar-Wai, Catherine Breillat
Which of your personal characteristics contributes most to your success as a storyteller?
I’m stubborn like a rhino and have the endurance of a wolf. I’m very collaborative. I surround myself with people who have interesting knowledge and great taste, and I’m not afraid to ask for help or advice.
Tell us about your history with Sundance Institute. When was the first time you engaged with us? Why did you want your film to premiere with us?
Sundance is one of the five biggest film festivals in the world. That much I know. I have also heard that the Midnight program is a great window to the American market.
Who was the first person you told when you learned you got into the Sundance Film Festival?
My daughter who’s 4. I told her it was a secret and made her swear she would not tell. She is very competitive, just like me, and is all about winning these days. So I told her I had won a very hard competition. She was very proud and promised solemnly she would tell no one — just her best friend, her other best friend, and her two fantasy friends. And her grandma. Never trust a 4-year-old.
What’s your favorite film that has come from the Sundance Institute or Festival?
I’m a big fan of Holiday by Isabella Eklöf. The ending is one of the best endings ever. I admire how resolute Isabella is in her filmmaking and how she is not afraid to rub the audience the wrong way. The first years of developing The Ugly Stepsister, a lot of people had opinions on what I could and could not do with the fairy tale in terms of what the audience would expect.
After seeing Holiday, I had this mad idea that if there was one person who would give me the best advice on this, it would be Isabella. I got in touch with her, and we clicked from the first meeting. There was talk of her writing for me, but she soon decided I should write it myself. I was scared shitless as I had never written a feature before, and the development up until that stage had taken very long. I begged her not to leave me. Isabella agreed to be the script’s “midwife” and worked closely with me on the first draft of the treatment. Isabella will forever be The Ugly Stepsister’s fairy godmother.
