Itonje Søimer Guttormsen's Gritt is showing exclusively on MUBI in many countries starting December 22, 2021 in the series Debuts.
The making of Gritt, or how to put stones in your shoes to prevent you from getting where you think you should be going, and instead bump into all that other stuff you can put into the pot, to brew some new reality.
In 2009 I ran into Birgitte Larsen (a.k.a. Gritt) sitting on a blanket in a park in Oslo. She had acted in a film school exercise I did two years earlier, but although I was struck by her intense and unusual presence even then, we hadn’t stayed in touch. Nevertheless, we immediately felt that this was a crucial encounter. I was in a crisis with the film medium in terms of format and production method and was aching to experiment. Also, I had recently encountered the myth of Lilith and was quite obsessed with the fact that she wasn’t a part of our Scandinavian culture.
To put it briefly for those still unaware: There was a woman before Eve, a woman created from the same dust as Adam, equally, known in some Jewish traditions as Lilith. Demonized indeed, but at least recognized. So, the whole “the first woman came from the man's rib” concept of course was a fraud, and I felt obligated to let the new gospel chime. There was also this fundamental alienation by not having cinematic female heroines to relate to, except perhaps Pippi Longstocking, and for some reason The Piano Teacher, and I was searching for a more adequate first lady, someone at unease with society, a neurotic rebel.
Birgitte and I had in common a sense of calling, or at least willingness to sacrifice to come close, as the wise Simone Weil would put it. This urge for radical commitment was something we wanted to investigate by giving it a character. The story of the passionate, driven woman (later known as Gritt) on a quest for new reality, who goes through a radicalization process was born—and with her a fourteen year, stony journey began. The Norwegian support system wasn’t particularly intrigued by the story that they dismissed as a diagnosis, and maybe not one from a bothersome woman filmmaker determined to produce herself on a very low budget without a clear script in order to maintain sufficient artistic freedom. Why couldn’t I just start my career with a children film-adaptation within one of the established production companies, like any other female director? I guess I needed to live in our newborn heroine’s uncomfortable red shoes to find proper building stones for her becoming.
Years of knocking on that film institute door passed while Birgitte and I made several filmic experiments to investigate our matter and keep the flame alive. My increasing personal drama of not manifesting and the shameful narcissistic pain of failed ambition in the country of the winners of the world lottery was indeed good fuel for the inner life of Gritt. And so were my upcoming left-hand activities. To justify my freelance existence, I manically started a bunch of stuff. One was a choir under the motto “Ambition above ability.” Through a project where we asked Syrian refugees to film their refugee-shelter-reality and use the images as a backdrop in a Bahram concert, I met an unusual young man, Shokat Harjo. His dream to become a football player was broken when he got shot in both legs by ISIS, and now he was searching for something new. Taking his images and buzz felt unfair, and a collaborative friendship began, later to fall into the Gritt melting pot.
Back in my early twenties, studying theatre science while trying to get into film school, Antonin Artaud shook my soul to the core. Being the obvious prophet for an alienated anarchistic soul, at unease with Scandinavian society, he was a natural fit for Gritt, and Lars Øyno, Norway’s and maybe the world’s leading Artaud interpreter with his Grusomhetens Teater, would be a go-to person for Gritt. At a point in flux I had accidently participated in an acting workshop conducted by the famous Living Theatre at Grusomhetens Teater, and years later while in New York I approached them to see if they were game to play. That’s when I also encountered a Fitness Witch, which lead me to seek some grounding back home from 70-year-old Afghan-born fitness guru Shoukat Chengezi, who would strengthen my meat and my spirit on the refusal path with sweet-talk like, “if the storm hits the eagle, it flies higher,” later to take Gritt under his wings as well. There are a dozen more; people from the so-called culture elite bravely engaging in the story, and others having to participate as punishment for throwing away crucial costumes that had already been shot in…
But perhaps the most defining encounter: Months before meeting Birgitte on that blanket I got a gig as an “undercover support-person” for Marte Goksøyr, an amazing actor-writer-director. Marte has Down syndrome and was cast in a play by the state traveling theatre, which was undergoing a “diversity year,” imposed by the government. We became an immediate match, and I found in her a fellow dedicated struggling artist, with an agenda to impose changes on society: in her case, fighting for neurodiversity. In the years to come, we would share ideas, dreams, and struggles of getting our stuff made. In her case the threshold for support was far more unjust than mine, the stigma of having Down countering both gender and artistic freedom challenges, and I would find comedy in our situation, so she too ended up in the pot, as Gritt’s sidekick.
Oh, one more sidetrack: The Lilith-obsession was about to lead me on wild tracks when I realized that what she needed was a collective. So, in 2014 I gathered ten wise women, including Birgitte, to go through a nine month confirmation process and confirm ourselves in Lilith and re-define Eden, as a ritual performance. A Lilihtoriatorie was created later to become a part of Erik Ljunggrens soundscape, and of course, Gritt crucially encounters Lilith when all hope seems out, providing a mental shelter for her homelessness.
Pragmatism eventually hit, and Birgitte and I gathered our forces and made a short film about our heroine, Retrett (2016). We called her Gry-Jeanette Dahl and had her arrive in Oslo after years of experimental theatre work abroad, and we used stuff at hand to create our story; a failed attempt working in an old peoples’ home, an allergic cat-sitting situation, an idea to collect sperm from strangers, the relationship with Marte Gorsøyr, a YouTube astro-guru. And a big dose of alienation encountering the conformist and self-satisfied Norwegian culture. We searched to capture the gap between her inner life filled with dreams, poetry and radical visions, and the misery of her actual reality, but my voice over attempts were pathetic. An essay by dancer Sunniva Egenes fell in our lap, and from that Gritt’s inner voice was found. The talented and sensitive cinematographer Patrik Säfström came abroad and with him Steadicam-master Egil Håskjold Larsen, and we went out to play under the motto “more trust, less safety!”
We thought it would be easy to make our feature from there, but in short I had to do a master degree to bridge the void between short and feature, titled “Lilithistic method of filmmaking—using neuroses as compass.” But Gritt had become a woman claiming her space, and an inner greenlight was shining. So we did our Lilithistic morning ritual and started shooting pretending it was just another short, and finally, I meet my right producer in the vibrant and brave Maria Ekerhovd of Mer Film, and when 70% was shot, the “New Way” program of the Norwegian Film Institute financed the film, thank god, but to be frank, let’s call it Our Way.
And here we are, on MUBI, which is such a pleasure! The seed conceived on a blanket in 2009 has been nurtured by so many warm and wise hands, hearts, eyes and ears, and the film is a brew of all these amazing people—and a cat!—offering their skills, persona, art, and stories to make the elixir that pushes Gritt over that border, into the wild.
My hope is that you, the audience, embark on Gritt’s bumpy journey and allow yourself to be moved, captivated, disturbed, empowered, and inspired. And that you will wonder what will happen further. Will her newfound hope last? Will she be a pilgrim or a bum? An apocalyptic pioneer or a mental patient? And will you listen to her or reject her?