Camerimage Winner ‘The Girl With the Needle’ Honors Classic Psychological Horror, Cinematographer Says

variety.com:

Will Tizard Contributor When Polish cinematographer Michal Dymek first read the script for “The Girl With the Needle” – the winner of this year’s Camerimage main prize – he says he could instantly see the scenes in his mind: stark, shadowy images of a decrepit Danish slum, where sweatshop workers during World War I bend over creaking machinery.

He saw classical onscreen shot compositions framing crumbling, claustrophobic spaces where desperate people are ensnared. “It was amazing, strong – like the best script I ever read,” says Dymek.

He knew instantly that the film had to be in black and white, he says. “I wanted to create a time machine. All we know of that time is from black and white photographs so we had to film that.” Over the two years of prep time, as the production grew into a Danish-Swedish-Polish project, says Dymek, Leica Hugo lenses were decided on to help create the distortions of old glass to remain true to the archival images of early 20th-century life of workers ruled by captains of the Industrial Age.

And the dismal settings created would naturally enough give rise to the story of a serial killer who promises relief – at a cost – for women who have babies they cannot afford to keep. “The Girl With the Needle,” scripted by director Magnus von Horn and Line Langebek Knudsen, is based on actual events from one of the darker chapters of modern Danish history and follows textile factory worker Karoline as things spiral into dangers that grow deeper the more she fights fiercely to better her life.