EXCLUSIVE: Production is underway on the Danish island of Funen on Girl Beast with a cast of Danish stars including Trine Dyrholm.
Girl Beast is the debut feature of Danish filmmaker Selma Sunniva, adapted from Cecilie Lind’s 2022 novel of the same name by Sunniva and Sissel Dalsgaard Thomsen. The psychological drama explores how childhood trauma and dysfunctional relationships shape identity and sexuality in the teenage years of a young girl called Sara.
Newcomer Rebecca Ellen plays the lead role, having been discovered following a casting search of 300 young women. Joining Ellen on the cast are Melina Raja, The Girl With The Needle actress Dyrholm, Morten Burian, Thure Lindhardt, Speak No Evil writer-director Christian Tafdrup, Nanna Skaarup Voss and Josephine Park.
The film is produced by Maria Moller Kjeldgaard and Ann-Sofie Grondal for Denmark’s Manna Film, which has previously produced Isabella Eklof’s Kalak and Malene Choi’s Berlinale 2023 documentary The Quiet Migration.
Girl Beast is backed by the Danish Film Institute’s New Danish Screen initiative for emerging talent, with FilmFyn, DR, and Creative Europe.
Angel Films will distribute in Denmark, with the film aiming for a 2026 premiere. It was previously presented in the Discovery development strand at Goteborg Film Festival’s Nordic Film Market.
Sunniva’s short film An Example played at the prestigious Clermont-Ferrand short film festival, and won best short film at Denmark’s Robert Awards.
“When I read Girl Beast, I felt both repelled and drawn to it,” said Sunniva. “Brilliantly enough, those feelings we exactly how I felt in my teenage years and early twenties. Through this film, I hope to shed light on how female sexuality — and specifically the sexualization of young girls — is internalized in a person, and deeply rooted in society.
“The sexualization of young girls is a societal sickness, and Girl Beast is a powerful tool to explore why this sexualization still persists. Both the Madonna and the Whore live inside me — but I know, and I see in other women, that there is more to being female than those two limiting options.”
“My novel couldn’t be in better hands than Selma’s,” said Lind. “She’s a wild filmmaker, I admire her greatly, and I can’t wait to see what girl beast she sets loose in the world.” Lind’s novel was nominated for several major literary awards in Denmark including the DR Novel Prize, Politiken’s Literature Prize, Jyllands-Posten’s Literature Prize, and the Montana Prize.
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