The Visit explores how the first encounter with intelligent life from outer space would be and most importantly what this would mean to humankind’s self-image. How did Michael come up with this idea?
Lise Lense-Møller: After Into Eternity, Michael wanted to continue to explore the theme of humankind. He had read an article about the fact that the United Nations had appointed an ambassador for aliens! It turned out to be a hoax, but afterwards, he learnt that the UN does have an office for outer space. That triggered his curiosity and he started to dig into the subject. The UN’s Office for Outer Space Affairs [OOSA] is actually an impressive place built in the 1970s so it’s been there a while but few people know about it.
How did you approach them? Was it difficult to get their authorisation to film inside their premises and showcase their knowledge?
LLM: Yes it took a while and we visited them several times before we were offered to make the film. Because of the article that said that the director of the office was an ambassador for aliens, they were afraid of ridicule. That was one of the major obstacles. However one day, one of the persons from OOSA called a colleague, a Swede who had seen Into Eternity and absolutely loved it! They understood what our project was about and its scientific and philosophical approach and gave their approval.
What were the biggest challenges and how did you create the visual concept that makes you feel and see things in a different prospect?
LLM: The biggest challenge was actually linked to Michael’s way of making films. With any kind of philosophical scrutiny, you can almost go in any direction and all questions are so big that you could spend the entire film exploring them. So finding your way through the material van be difficult.
With Into Eternity, we actually had a hole in the ground [the Onkalo waste repository] which helped a bit. But we didn’t even have that with The Visit. Also Michael wants to use the film almost like a scientific experiment to explore his ideas. He doesn’t want to decide in advance what the film is meant to be so it can be difficult for instance to explain to financiers. But he had the conceptual and visual idea very early on. He knew for the start he wanted the camera to be the alien and for the alien to ‘discover’ the world through his/her eyes.
To create the look, we used high speed, which translated into slow motion and we used ultra-slow motion, usually used for pan shots, to create a weird sensation that time is different from what we know. We also did different types of shots, with steady-cams, tried to change the horizon to get the feeling that we’re not in a normal human perspective. These are the two main creative visual works that we did.
Was Michael inspired by specific sci-fi movies?
LLM: His main inspirations were 2001 Space Odyssey and Tarkovsky’s The Mirror because he wanted The Visit to be a mirror reflecting our self-image.
You had four co-producers on the film. Are some of them regular partners and how expensive was the film to produce?
LLM: Yes our co-producers were NGF Geyrhalterfilm in Austria, Venom Films Ireland, Mouka Filmi in Finland and Indie Film in Norway. The film was shot mostly in Vienna where the UN’s OOSA is based but also in France, the US, the Netherlands. I met my Austrian co-producer through EAVE where I teach. With Mouka Filmi, we have collaborated on many occasions and Michael enjoys working with Finnish DoP Heikki Färm so the collaboration was natural. The full budget was just over DKK 9 million.
What’s the plan for the distribution?
LLM: We have a lot of offers on the table and after Sundance we will have a market screening in Berlin where we hope to close more deals. The plan is to use a conceptual release, the way we did for 1989 to then put together a simultaneous release across several European territories. We still have to negotiate details and dates with distributors but we want to take our time for the launch.
Is Michael Madsen going to continue his exploration of humankind through time and space with another film?
LLM: Yes his next project has the working title of Odyssey. It takes a step further by exploring inter-generational space travel. If we destroy our planet and look for another planet to live, we will have to travel on a spaceship and bring with us the most essential items and people for our survival. But on a mission where there is no return possible, who will actually volunteer to leave everything behind and why? What will be worth saving? The film will explore all these questions.
What other documentaries are you working on?
LLM: I have a new project by the director of Putin’s Kiss Lise Birk Pedersen called The School of Democracy. It looks at the Italian phenomenon of Beppe Grillo. He has sent 153 senators to the Italian Parliament who had no experience whatsoever so they had to learn about democracy, which is why the film is called ‘school’ of democracy. Italy is such a fantastic political theatre and arena it will be a perfect setting to explore what democracy is about today.
Then I have the project Between Two Worlds by Janus Metz [Armadillo], third part of a trilogy I took over the project which will be a 2 x 1hour and a feature film. He has followed the small community of Thy in Denmark where there are a lot of Thai wives, then in Thailand, over a decade. He made the two films Love on Delivery and Ticket to Paradise and this will be a follow up. It’s a unique look at human migration.