TrustNordisk is excited to announce that Marlene Emilie Lyngstad’s debut feature CUTE has been selected to compete in the New Directors section at San Sebastián International Film Festival. This marks the CUTE’s world premiere and TrustNordisk is proud to have boarded international sales on the film ahead of the festival.
The festival takes place from September 18th to 26th.
CUTE is a character-driven drama about forbidden desire and loneliness, and two people forming a bond despite their imperfections. The film is written and directed by Lyngstad, known for her unique storytelling and the short film NORWEGIAN OFFSPRING, which won the La Cinef Award at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. The screenplay is co-written with Emilie Koefoed Larsen, who also collaborated with Lyngstad on NORWEGIAN OFFSPRING.
“The decision to include CUTE in the program demonstrates the courage to embrace difficult subjects and moral ambiguity. For that, I am incredibly grateful. With this film, I have sought to explore tenderness in one of the most disturbing corners of human experience. I can't wait to share it with audiences in September”, says director Marlene Emilie Lyngstad.
"We're thrilled to welcome CUTE to our slate and to collaborate with Marlene. She has a unique voice as a film maker, and we're excited to follow her debut film's journey and introduce it to audiences at San Sebastián," says Managing Director at TrustNordisk, Susan Wendt.
The film stars Jan Gunnar Røise, known from Dag Johan Haugerud’s acclaimed award-winning feature film SEX (2024) and emerging talent Gina Jaqueline.
Synopsis:
Troubled by forbidden feelings for his seven-year-old stepdaughter, Richard decides to leave his girlfriend. He retreats to his childhood home to renovate ahead of its sale, but his self-imposed exile is disrupted by the childlike presence of his mother's caregiver, Stella. He soon discovers her double life as a Lolita camgirl, and the two develop a transgressive surrogate father-daughter relationship. Their constructed reality begins to unravel when the stepdaughter he left behind reaches out.
CUTE is directed by Marlene Emilie Lyngstad and written by Marlene Emilie Lyngstad & Emilie Koefoed Larsen. The film is produced by Carl Osbæck Adelkilde for Nordisk Film Production with support from The Danish Film Institute / New Danish Screen, Film I Väst, NRK, Amarcord & Nordisk Film Distribution. International sales are handled by TrustNordisk.