26/08/2024 - The picture offers a truthful and heartfelt story about a young, disabled woman, told from the perspective of the director, who has been in a wheelchair herself for her entire life

Director Mari Storstein on the set of My First Love (© TrustNordisk)

Last week, Danish sales outfit TrustNordisk boarded world sales on Mari Storstein’s debut feature, My First Love. The picture, staged by The Worst Person in the World [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Joachim Trier
film profile] producer Thomas Robsahm and Tøri Gjenda for Nordisk Film Production Norway and Amarcord, is currently in production. The news was first reported by Variety.

In detail, My First Love promises to offer “a truthful and heartfelt story about a young, disabled woman, told from the perspective of the director, who has been in a wheelchair herself for her entire life”.

The script, penned with Tomas Myklobost (also serving as the DoP), centres on Ella, a 19-year-old woman in a wheelchair, dependent on the system. When she moves away from home to study, her application for assistance is rejected, and she has to move into an institution instead of her own flat, as she had dreamed of for so long. At the same time, she meets her first love.

Storstein, an alumna of Lillehammer University College at Norway’s TV School, has systematically used her camera to depict the plight of disabled persons and received multiple accolades for her work (the country’s equivalent of the Emmy Awards) in 2018 for her documentary series Søsken, about six families in which one of the siblings has a disability.

The main cast is led by Marie Flaatten, Niels Skåber, Jan Gunnar Røise, Silje Breivik, Silje Storstein, Øystein Martinsen, Haakon Johannes Kjølberg Hauge and Clara Penzo Fasting. Sveinung Golimo is attached as the executive producer, whilst Anna Løvlund is in charge of the editing and Ingeborg Marie Mohn serves as the composer.

“I’ve always loved telling stories. When I was little, my siblings and I would take our father’s camera and make short films in the neighbourhood. At first, it was mostly for fun, but as I grew older and experienced a lot of injustice and discrimination, I realised that film can be used as a political tool in the fight for equality. It’s not enough for stories to be told about us. The stories about us must be told by us,” the helmer said.

For Storstein, her drama is “about falling in love for the very first time, about opening up to another person and daring to put oneself out there, when society is telling you not to”, and “a story about being young and finding your place in this strange, scary, yet wonderful world”.

TrustNordisk CEO Susan Wendt added: “It is important to have these stories on screens. I’m absolutely convinced that Mari Storstein will tell this tale with both warmth and humour in order for others to be able to relate to it.”

Budgeted at €1.3 million, the project received backing from the Norwegian Film Institute, and it will be distributed locally by Nordisk Film Distribution next year. Nicholas Sando is co-producing it for Lillehammer-based outfit Filmbin.