Visual effects in the Oscar-nominated film The Girl with the Needle were created by DUPP Film in Karlsborg

DUPP Film in Karlsborg works with visual effects for films. One of the company’s biggest projects last year was the Danish film The Girl with the Needle. The film has already won several awards and has now been nominated for an Oscar in the Best International Feature Film category.

Livet i Skaraborg spoke with Per Nyman and Lars Andréasson at DUPP to learn more about the film and how the Karlsborg-based company was involved in the production.

Congratulations on the nomination. How does it feel?

“It’s incredibly exciting! The film has already premiered in Denmark, but it will be released in Sweden on February 21. We’re all going to watch it together with our colleagues!”

You created the VFX for the film. What does that mean?

“VFX stands for visual effects and includes all the special effects and digital adjustments that are added after a film has been shot. Effects that are created during filming are referred to as special effects. This film was one of our larger projects last year. It was completed in time for the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. Eight of us worked on it for three months.”

What kind of film is The Girl with the Needle?

“It’s a very dark film that tells a harrowing story. Set in 1920s Copenhagen, it has a distinctive and visually striking look. Because it is a historical film, part of our work involved replacing details that were not historically accurate. Even when filming takes place in older areas, buildings may have roofs made from modern materials, for example. We can digitally replace those with materials that would have existed in the 1920s.

We also work with elements such as smoke and fog to enhance the atmosphere and emotions of a scene. Historical films are particularly exciting for us because they often require extensive research to ensure that everything looks authentic and period-correct.”

When do you typically become involved in the filmmaking process?

“It varies greatly from project to project. Sometimes we are involved from the planning stage, while in other cases we come in later and receive very specific instructions about what needs to be done. For this particular film, it was somewhere in between.

We attended some of the shoots where it was already known that a significant amount of VFX would be added, which gave us insight into how certain scenes were intended to look. Later, we traveled to Copenhagen to watch the entire film while it was still being edited and discuss the visual effects with the director.

In the end, we worked on around 150 shots, so there are quite a lot of visual effects in the finished film. Of course, the goal is never for the audience to notice them when watching the movie.”

You worked on this film last year. What are you working on now?

“For us, this is a very busy period because we are currently working on two films that will be screened at Cannes later this spring. It’s exciting because we have carved out a niche in arthouse cinema, which often performs well at film festivals and award ceremonies.

At the moment, we are working on Tarik Saleh’s film Eagles of the Republic, starring Fares Fares. But we also work on projects at the other end of the spectrum, such as the fifth Bamse film, so our work spans a wide range of genres.

If you would like to watch a film we have worked on but are looking for something more family-friendly than The Girl with the Needle, we also created the visual effects for the currently showing The Crown Prince and the Return of the Tyrant.”

This text has been translated with the help of AI.