How Danish Actresses Enraged Lars Von Trier & Sparked A Diversity Debate By Scrubbing White Actors From Film Posters
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Who do we traditionally consider to be Danish on screen, and why?
That is the question diversity action group ‘A Bigger Picture’ (Et Større Billede) is attempting to ask with its new visual campaign, which has sparked a controversial debate about representation and racism within the Danish film and TV industry.
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The group, which comprises diverse members of the Danish industry, was created by actresses Laura Allen Müller (Borgen), Sandra Yi Sencindiver (Bäckström), Malaika B. Mosendane (Get a Life), Şiir Tilif (Borderline), and Dorcas Joanna Hansen. They teamed up during the pandemic through an informal support group for Danish actresses of color started by Sencindiver.
“It was just like a sisters network that’s been ongoing since 2020,” Sencindiver said.
Last month, the group made waves in Denmark when they released a series of images online that recreated the posters from three high-profile Danish productions: Fathers and Mothers by Paprika Steen, Lars von Trier’s The Kingdom series, and Thomas Vinterberg’s upcoming TV2 series Families Like Ours. However, there was a twist. The campaign group switched out the original actors, who are all white, and subbed in an alternative lineup of performers from diverse ethnic backgrounds, sexualities, and religions.
The three recreations were shared widely across the group’s social media platforms, along with a statement that outlined their motives.
“Our three images, which we have named Parents, the Hospital, and Our Family, are an artistic commentary on the limited and out-of-date worldview that exists and is recreated in Danish film and television,” the group said.
The statement notes that while discussions around race, inequality, and the importance of broad representation in visual media have accelerated following the #MeToo movement and Black Lives Matter protests, the Danish industry has “not yet come very far” in addressing its shortcomings.
“There’s a saying over here, the #MeToo wave hit Denmark and died,” group creator Sencindiver told Deadline. “The rest of the world has been having conversations about power and structural racism, but it’s not discussed in Denmark.”
Sencindiver added that while Danes have an “extremely liberal” perception of themselves — based on their global reputation for welcoming different cultures and championing open-minded ideals around sex and relationships — actual material progress in the lives of minority groups in the country has “grown stale.”
“This is why they find it so provocative when someone tells them that they’re not so progressive,” Sencindiver said.
The Bigger Picture campaign has quickly picked up traction from national newspapers, and members of the collective have appeared on Danish television to discuss the campaign. Jakob Engel-Schmidt, the Danish Minister for Culture, also recently appeared on a late-night Danish talk show where he debated the merits of the campaign. This momentum prompted a response from Claus Ladegaard, director of the Danish Film Institute, who said the organization would “rethink and restart” efforts to strengthen ethnic diversity on set and screen.
“We have to recognize that in the past 10 years, there has been no major development in the direction of greater ethnic diversity in Danish film – a diversity that is one of the prerequisites for the continued development of the cultural significance and quality of Danish film,” Ladegaard said.
The Danish Film Institute has collected data on ethnic diversity in Danish cinema since 2013. Figures published last year by the organization showed that, despite the introduction of new mentoring schemes and workshops, only “limited progress” has occurred on screen and behind the camera over the past decade.
In fact, the proportion of what the Institute describes as New Danes — Danish citizens born to parents who were both born abroad or have foreign citizenship — has fallen in Danish feature filmmaking since 2018.
“The fact that they even define people as ‘New Danes’ points to a problem,” Sencindiver said. “They still don’t understand that you can’t just address diversity as a theme. It’s not just about accepting some women or people of color. It’s about changing the institutions.”
Lars von Trier Likens Campaign To Fascism
More than 40 members of the Danish film and TV industry have signed on in support of the Bigger Picture campaign, including actors like Jesper Christensen (Into the Darkness), Ellen Hillingsø (The Experiment), and Lotte Andersen (Nightwatch). The key to the buzz, Sencindiver believes, has been the group’s decision to strike a relaxed demeanor when conveying their argument.
“When I discuss the campaign on TV and in the newspapers, I just keep a calm, friendly diplomatic face. That’s made all the difference. Because people really don’t like angry feministic women,” she said.
The group hasn’t convinced everyone with its founding philosophy. “F**k me,” Dogville filmmaker and longtime provocateur Lars von Trier told the daily newspaper Berlingske when quizzed about the campaign.
He added that works of art should only be completed under “total artistic freedom.” “Any form of censorship or quotas is a restriction of freedom of expression and thus ultimately leads to fascism,” he said.
Von Trier is the only prominent figure in the Danish film industry that has publicly addressed the posters. In response, the campaign group posted a screenshot of the filmmaker’s interview on their Instagram account with the caption: “We (still) love Lars von Trier. We assume he read Berlingske’s article and angled headline, not necessarily our open letter).”
The group later shared that longtime Zentropa producer and von Trier collaborator Louise Vesth had reached out and asked to discuss their ideas over coffee.
“Both Louise and Sisse Graum [Zentropa exec] met with us, and we sat there for a couple of hours and talked through all of the issues,” Sencindiver said.
Deadline has reached out to Zentropa for comment.
Sencindiver and members of the group originally contacted the producers of all three films they used in the campaign, including Vesth, and warned of their plans before the posters were released.
“We just wanted to let them know it’s not personal. It’s not an attack on the individual artist, we’re doing it to show a structural problem,” Sencindiver told Deadline.
Since then, Sencindiver has received invitations to meet and discuss a plan of action with the Danish Minister of Culture, the film and TV unions, including the Danish Producers’ Association and The Association of Danish Film Directors, and major Scandinavian production companies, including SF Studios.
“It’s exciting that people are reaching out and understanding that yes, this is a problem, and we have to start this conversation,” Sencindiver said.
Moving forward, Sencindiver told Deadline that the campaign plans to move away from public forms of disruption to focus on concrete legislation and ideas with their new partners.
“This isn’t a quick fix. It’s a structural change. And that’s the message we’re getting across now,” she said. “Maybe there’s still hope for Danish film and TV, and we can still keep our standing on the global scene and not be looked at as an entirely dated pocket in time.”
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