HOMAGE 2026: Actress Trine Dyrholm
The 75th IFFMH is dedicating the HOMAGE of its anniversary edition to one of Europe’s most outstanding actresses. In over 80 productions, she has brought to life numerous female characters over the past three decades, who have left an indelible mark on us. The stage is set for Trine Dyrholm!
Annika loses herself in her relationship with a man who was in prison for rape; Anna lives in a commune with her husband’s lover; Anne begins sleeping with her 16-year-old stepson. These are three roles which, both individually and collectively, demonstrate the immense versatility of Trine Dyrholm. Three roles which, at the same time, reveal characteristic threads running through the work of this great Danish actress.
Indeed, these three characters may well have their origins in Dyrholm’s very first role in front of the camera: As the teenager Pauline in ›Spring Tide‹ (1990), she falls in love with a young man whom her parents have taken in as a foster child, and ends up having a child by him. What all these women have in common, in any case, is that they embark on affairs that would be described, at best, as unconventional or controversial – terms that would still be an understatement. But regardless of whether these relationships end happily or in disaster – at the end of emotionally ambivalent, morally ambiguous journeys, each of these films is about how only a love that transcends all conventions reveals the inner lives of Dyrholm’s highly complex characters. The courage to surrender oneself completely to such characters, not to leave deep guilt buried in the subconscious and to peer deep into the abyss, has long been a defining feature of Danish cinema. The initial spark for this came in 1995, when the medium celebrated its 100th anniversary and two young Danes (Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg) founded Dogma 95, a movement intended to usher cinema into its second century. However, 1995 was also the year in which Trine Dyrholm, who had previously pursued a career as a musician, completed her training at the National Drama School. With her role in Vinterberg’s ›The Celebration‹ (1998) – the legendary big bang of a confessional, radical and often highly provocative Danish cinema – she laid the foundations for her career. (The fact that the film’s influence continues to this day is demonstrated not least by our entry in this year’s competition, ›The Guest‹.) Shortly afterwards – in 2002 – Trine Dyrholm made her first appearance at the IFFMH as a member of the International Jury. And in the same year, ›Bungalow‹ by Ulrich Köhler marked the start of the series of films she has shot in Germany. (These included ›3069 Days‹ by Sherry Hormann in 2013, as well as ›The Cut‹ by Fatih Akin and ›Who am I‹ by Baran bo Odar, both in 2014.)
At home, the significance of the Dogma 95 films for Danish cinema remained immense for many years. At the same time, however, it was a strongly male-dominated movement, and its founders called themselves the Brethren (Brothers). Against this backdrop in particular, it is one of the remarkable features of Trine Dyrholm’s career that she has managed to produce a significant proportion of her films consistently under female direction. With Pernille Fischer Christensen has worked with her three more times since ›En Soap‹ (2006), and has also collaborated with female directors such as Annette K. Olesen (›In Your Hands‹, 2004), Susanne Bier (›In a Better World‹, 2010 and ›Love is All You Need‹, 2012), May el-Thoukhy (›Lang Historie Kort‹, 2015), Susanna Nicchiarelli (›Nico, 1988‹, 2017) and Charlotte Sieling (›The Queen of the North‹, 2021).
The female characters developed collaboratively through recurring collaborations – unconventional, intellectually ambivalent and brimming with raw emotion – are undoubtedly among the most exciting that European cinema has produced in recent decades.
Welcome back, Trine Dyrholm!
