Seize the day, seize the hour and meet four female photographers, who may have a lot of experience under their belt, but who also continue to be courageous and curious at a level where everyone can (and should!) be inspired.
The World is Out of Focus introduces us to the four Danish, female photographers Else Tholstrup, Nanna Bisp Büchert, Marianne Engberg and Tove Kurtzweil – all brimming with a zest for life, a creative urge, and an anecdote or five!
Original titel (Danish): Verden er uskarp
Director: Iben Haahr Andersen
Written by: Iben Haahr Andersen
Producer: Lise Saxtrup
Cinematography: Iben Haahr Andersen
Editor: Per Götz
Composer: Christian Rønn
Sound Design: Anne Gry Friis Kristensen
Producer assistant: Julia Mejnertsen
Production Company: Klassefilm ApS
Produced with support from The Danish Film Institute, TV2 Denmark, SVT, The Velux Foundation, The Danish Arts Foundation, Aage and Johanne Louis-Hansen’s Foundation.
BIOGRAPHY
Director Iben Haahr Andersen has a long history in the world of documentary film, first as a sound engineer, graduated from the Danish Film School, then as a director. Characteristic of her films is a close and personal relationship to the unique destinies she portrays. That closeness creates relevant narratives that have reached a wide audience in Denmark (and internationally). In a poetic way and with an eye for the whimsical, she told the story of 87-year-old Anton, who lives alone on his family farm (Life according to Anton, 2015), about the fisherman Poul, who at a late age came out as gay and married the man Mai from Thailand (My Love, 2013), the story of the 80-year-old electronic soundmaker Else Marie Pade (Sound on Life, 2006), the story of Kirsten, a former ambassador’s wife, and Fernande, a 75-year-old river barge captain, who form a special friendship on the Seine in Paris (Two Women on a River, 1996). All her movies show the diversity of life.
FILMOGRAPHY
2022 “The World is Out of Focus”
2017 “Heroines of the Pipes”
2016 “Xenia-confessions of a Truck driver”
2015 “In Light of the Revolution – about Women and Art in Cairo”
2015 “Life according to Anton”
2012 “My Love“
2009 “Hello my name is lesbian”
2006 “Sound on Life”
2001 “Kids in Action”
1996 “Two Women on a River”
Chosen as one of the seven best Danish movies of 2022 by film critic at Danish newspaper Information, Lone Nikolajsen.
Ekko Film ****
Kjartan Hansen / 1/10-22
“This portrait of four striking female photographers thoughtfully shows the 20th century filtered through an artistic mind.”
Cinemaonline *****
Steen Balle / 29/9-22
“The Danish film director Iben Haahr Andersen (b.1953) has made an extremely telling documentary film worth watching about four Danish female photographers; Else Tholstrup (1929), Nanna Bisp Büchert (1937), Marianne Engberg (1937), Tove Kurtzweil (1938-2018). The film is filled with the photographers’ thoughts about seeing the world through a lens – and Haahr Andersen’s quest for why a photographer might become interested in photographing a drain pipe.”Information
Christian Monggaard / 29/9-22
“Four excellent, Danish, female photographers are poetically and empathetically portrayed in Iben Haahr Andersen’s new, fine documentary film ‘The World is Out of Focus’.”Politiken ****
Nanna Frank Rasmussen / 29/9-22
“It is bubbling and sizzling when Iben Haahr Andersen stirs the pot of history and serves portraits of the four photographers.”“‘The World is Out of Focus’ just makes you want more.”
Jyllands Posten ****
Jacob Wendt Jensen / 29/9-22Berlingske Tidende ****
Ann Lind Andersen / 5/10-22
“Four Danish photographers changed the history of photography. Now a new film tells their story.”Soundvenue ****
Freja Dam / 28/9-22
“In all respects, the film’s protagonists are immensely inspiring.”“It is a pleasure to get to know the women, and for once one wishes that the film, at a modest one hour and a quarter, would be longer. The world may be out of focus, but the film isn’t.”
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