Variety Lounge w/ Noomi Rapace at Sarajevo FF 24'
Category
✨
PeopleTranscript
00:00I feel like I was on one route and then I did Land and then I started to move in a different direction sort of.
00:05Valter Mari Johansson was the first-time director and out of the conversations I started to see what kind of film he wanted to do.
00:12But it was really a movie that brought me back to my roots and connected me with the child in me who grew up in Icelandic soil.
00:22And that's kind of where I found my voice and my personality as a seven-year-old.
00:27So that movie is really close to my heart and changed a lot in me.
00:44I can't believe it's your first time in Sarajevo because you absolutely know the region, at least Macedonia, anyway.
00:51My mom has been here a couple of times, strangely enough, and I did a movie with Goran Sulevski, who's Macedonian.
00:57But we shot it in Serbia and now I'm working with another Macedonian filmmaker.
01:01So I'm very fond of the cinema from here and there seems to be a certain bravery and kind of punky passion.
01:10And have you seen other regional films, Danis Tanovic and Adam Irkinovic and other Balkan films?
01:16Yeah, I grew up watching some Balkan films, strangely enough.
01:20I was familiar with films from this region.
01:22There was a lot of refugees that came to Sweden when I was a teenager.
01:27And I got introduced to the horrors here from an early age.
01:31So I think that also my interest for the filmmakers and the artists from here came from that.
01:37And you can really feel it in the city.
01:39It might be one of the most important film festivals because the power of films and what art can do to people
01:46and how you can discover stories and characters and look into situations and hearts that you would never know of
01:54and how the beginning of healing is to maybe start to forgive and understand and accept and respect and to be heard and seen.
02:02And I feel like, you know, that's really the power of films to be here.
02:07I feel the history and I feel very honored to be here.
02:10Do you have directors that you'd like to work with again or some directors that you'd like to work with for the first time?
02:17Yes, I mean, many.
02:19Just, I mean, look, look at the people we have around us here.
02:23I've been discovering some amazing filmmakers here, but Alexander Payne is really one of my favorite filmmakers.
02:29I think he's balancing on this comedic, tragic line all the time.
02:34And it's so heartwarming, but brutal and touching and funny.
02:39I've been rewatching a lot of his films because I knew he was going to be here and tonight we're honoring him.
02:43I'm very drawn to filmmakers and to stories, and it doesn't really matter what kind of world is existing and taking place in.
02:51I will bring my own truth and try to bring my life into it, no matter what the setting is.
02:57I think I'm drawn to filmmakers that are ready to explore and go all the way in a genre.
03:03I read somewhere that you were going to make a film with Ali Abassi, that you were going to play Hamlet.
03:09Yes, we are still talking about it.
03:11He's truly one of the bravest and very unique boys.
03:15So anything he would ask me to do, I would come and play with him.
03:19And why did you want to do the gender swap and play the lead role as Hamlet?
03:24Ali has a very specific take on that, that if it comes to that, he will explain how he sees it.
03:31How many languages do you speak?
03:33Less than people think. There's this amazing rumor that I speak loads of languages and I don't.
03:39And how was it when you were in Goran's film where you don't speak at all?
03:43It was lovely.
03:45Goran is really a fascinating and very gentle director, but with a very strong vision.
03:54So it was funny, the first day I came, I shot a movie in Norway, landed in Serbia,
03:59and I drove for three or four hours up to this remote village.
04:04And I had a meeting with Goran in the evening.
04:06And he came and sat down, and we're going to go over the script and eat,
04:09and I was going to start shooting the next day because I came right from my last shoot.
04:12And then he was like, so how do you feel about the nudity?
04:14And I was like, what do you mean?
04:18And he was like, yeah, I mean, the nudity.
04:20And I was like, well, I mean, I show my breasts maybe, but he's like, no, like you're naked, naked.
04:26And I was like, oh, I completely missed that.
04:30And there was like one line in the script that said, like,
04:32she walks out of the barn as God made her or something like that.
04:36And I completely missed it.
04:37I called my makeup artist who was in the hotel.
04:39I was like, Lois, do you know that I'm naked tomorrow?
04:43She was like, no.
04:44So she had to start to make a murky basically that very night out of a beard.
04:49So the next morning she was like gluing, you know, a little wig, a little homemade murky
04:55because I'm supposed to look like a farmer that I have never shaved or done any waxing.
04:59In the hands of Goran, I felt really safe.
05:02I actually had a beautiful conversation the other day about men and women and female directors,
05:06male directors and actors.
05:08And I don't see myself as an actress.
05:12I see myself as a human.
05:14And sometimes you meet other artists, directors or actors that are the same.
05:18And Goran is he's neither a man or a woman for me.
05:21He's just Goran and he's a human.
05:23And we connected.
05:24And I didn't feel that it was like a man directing me and I'm running naked on his set.
05:29It's interesting how you can sometimes feel even more exposed and naked when you're fully dressed
05:35and on a set with someone that you don't feel really safe with maybe.
05:38But with him, I just felt completely free.
05:41And it felt like that was the only thing that was supposed to be.
05:45And I hear you're being Mother Teresa.
05:48Is it the young Mother Teresa?
05:50Yeah, she's 38 in our film.
05:52And it takes place over seven days in her life.
05:55So we're in deep prep.
05:56I was doing makeup tests the other day here.
05:59She flew in.
05:59So we've been kind of working and, you know, working simultaneously on that here.
06:04When will you start to shoot?
06:06In a month.
06:07Wow.
06:07Yeah.
06:08Have you ever wanted to direct yourself?
06:10Yeah, I mean, I can feel also I'm producing now.
06:14And I feel like the more I see of filmmaking and the more I love discovering different sides of it.
06:22The louder the voice in me becomes that is kind of more than just an actress.
06:28So I feel like I'm coming closer to that.