By MICHAEL GINGOLD
His “Little Mermaid” was a lot darker than the Disney version, and these tales go even scarier.
Currently playing the festival circuit, the Danish production ADORABLE HUMANS is based on the works of beloved author Hans Christian Andersen, and coincides with the 150th anniversary of his passing this year. The film makes its U.S. and Mexican premieres tomorrow, November 7 at New York City’s Nordic International Film Festival and the Feratum Film Festival respectively. It will also screen at Finland’s Night Visions and the UK’s Grimmfest in the coming months. The anthology feature consists of segments written and directed by Anders Jon, Michael Kunov, Kasper Juhl and Michael Panduro, and the cast is headed by Albert Rudbeck Lindhardt, Sus Wilkins, Mille Maria Dalgsaard, Marinus Refnov, Mie Gren, Adam Ild Rohweder, Peter Høgsbro and Iben Skau.
The synopsis: “As supernatural forces slip through the cracks, four people are forced to confront their demons. A young couple move to the countryside in hopes of a fresh start, until a mysterious mirror turns their world inside out. A homecare worker tending to a dying man uncovers secrets that refuse to stay buried. Meanwhile, a musician spirals toward the abyss, caught between ambition and writer’s block, while a psychologist slowly loses her grip on reality after a fateful accident. ADORABLE HUMANS is a film anthology about fate and acceptance, about love and loss–and it is Hans Christian Andersen as a horror film.”
The ambitious project was pulled off with a production budget of just $75,000. According to the PR, “This project was born out of a number of motivating factors. For one, the idea of collaborating with other directors was intriguing to everyone. ADORABLE HUMANS is not a typical horror anthology, produced by isolated hubs resulting in wildly varying chapters. Instead, this film was a collaboration from the very beginning. Even though each chapter was written and directed by a different director, everybody was in contact from the start. While giving feedback on scripts and working on tying the stories together and sharing characters, the film’s four directors were in continuous contact during production and postproduction. In order to create a cohesive film, the decision was also made early on to have key crew members work across the entire film. As such, the film may have four directors, but it only has two DOP’s, one sound designer, one composer and one colorist.”
