Back in November 2021, we were introduced to Tea Lindeburg’s debut film As In Heaven. The film was doing its festival circuits, and we got the opportunity to see it while covering the London Film Festival. The film depicts one long night in which its young star, Flora Ofelia Hofmann Lindahl, plays Lise, who is waiting on news about whether her mother has survived giving birth on a stormy night. The outcome has huge consequences for the young girl on the brink of womanhood.
The director said of the young star: “Flora is a very talented young woman and I am so extremely proud of her. I could not have wished for a better girl to portray Lise. It was not an easy part to play, but Flora put everything she had into that role, and I think it clearly shows.”
The film didn’t get a UK release but was on the streamer Viaplay when it was briefly available in the UK. One hopes it will get a release on Amazon Prime later in the year!
What did get a release here and continued to show how good this young actress is was the Danish series Cry Wolf, which was released on Walter Presents/Channel 4 and is still currently available to watch. Here, Flora plays a young girl who has accused her father of violence, leading to the intervention of a social worker. But is she telling the truth, and what is really going on?
The series, which was released in 2022 but had come out in Denmark before As In Heaven, is full-on: emotionally heartbreaking and traumatic, with once again the accolade going to Flora and her performance.
Flash forward to 2024 and Michael Noer’s Birthday Girl has had a release in the UK – the film stars the young actress alongside a very famous face in the industry Trine Dyrholm. We got to speak to Flora about her role in Birthday Girl and what it was like getting to star alongside one of Denmark’s greats.
The film sees the pair play a mother and daughter who head off on a cruise to celebrate the daughter’s 18th birthday only for her to be sexually assaulted and the crew onboard aren’t believing her.
The actress catches up with Alex from Copenhagen over a video call.
“Not many people have seen As In Heaven, it is not such a blockbuster movie, we saw it more as a festival film“, the actress explains surprised that we have seen it ourselves.
Getting to see the actress in a new feature film was great news, and her pairing not only with Trine but with Michael Noer as well made for a fantastic team-up for the film. The director stated: “It was amazing to work with these two actresses, and it felt like two friends with this big age gap between us. Flora kept me on my toes and told me what music I should be listening to and what not.”
We wondered how the pair managed to build their dynamic as the mother and daughter, whose relationship is incredibly strained in the film.
“We talked a lot about the roles before we started shooting, and I also knew Trine from before.”
After the success of Cry Wolf, Flora found her career accelerating really fast, and she needed someone to help advise her and offer support. So even before the pair played a family, Trine had already shared a maternal instinct.
“The whole team got on really well personally too”, the actress goes on to explain.
When the pair shot their first scene Flora felt that connection, one that she says she hadn’t ever really felt with anyone before; “The way I felt safe with her helped us explore some things together“.
Flora had always been a fan of Trine’s work stating that she had loved how she portrayed women in so many roles, including very crazy roles, which she found really fascinating.
“I can’t wait to see her new film The Girl With the Needle and my friend Vic Carmen Stone who is also in it. My favourite film of hers is Queen of Hearts, it was a horrible movie but I think the way she portrayed a horrible crazy woman but managed to understand her whilst she is doing that is so fascinating. Our work is about understanding characters and portraying them as best as possible even if they are crazy“.
The actress beams when talking about how she got this wonderful opportunity to work with her in the same ‘creative space’ – for such a young talent to get that opportunity is exciting to take full advantage of and the pair do a truly magnificent job.
When it comes to the men in Birthday Girl, one could point out that Michael Noer hasn’t painted them in the most attractive light: Flora’s character’s father is absent, her boyfriend is being rather aggressive and toxic over the phone, and then there is Norway’s Herman Tømmeraas with his band of stag do pals. One might wonder whether this is a feminist movie.
“I don’t think it is a feministic film, but in a way, it is because the fact is that this is happening on cruise ships. This is one of the most common crimes on cruise ships, so we wanted to explore turning these true stories into fiction. There are some feminist moments, but this is not a feministic film. This is a reality.”
Michael did a lot of work researching before writing the story, and his discovery of what has been going on with cruise ships was terrifying, leading him to write this film. So if for a moment you might scoff at the film and what happens, then take yourselves to the cruise line victims’ website to see how real this fictional film matches the reality Flora highlights.
On a lighter note, I ask Flora about the modern music that she introduced to the director during the shooting of the film.
“I introduced Michael to a Danish artist called Tessa, who is a rapper, and I just love her music. The thing is, when you have directors writing young people’s lines, sometimes it can sound different from what it should be. So I wanted to help him understand how it is to be young now—how we talk and integrate with each other, what kind of music we listen to, all of that. So, Maja and I just told him what kind of music we have been listening to at parties.”
Maja Isa Thiele plays Cille’s best friend who comes along on the trip but begins to regret getting embroiled in the arguing mother and daughter duo.
Having talked about the music, Flora goes on to explain how much she loves to listen to music with her acting. Music has been a big part of her life (her father is a musician and producer), so when it comes to getting into the frame of mind for her roles, she would make her own playlists to get into character.
“Sometimes it is music that I connect with the characters, sometimes it is music that I hate, but I think the character is listening to it,” Flora explains. “It helps me to find emotional things inside of me too. The weird shifts of music really help me.”
And it would come as no surprise that when Trine spotted her on set listening to her music to get in the zone, the actress pointed out that she too did exactly the same thing. Clearly, these two were meant to be paired together, creating the emotional heartbeat of Birthday Girl.
With Flora just at the very beginning of her career, I ask who she would love to work with in the future.
“I loved Fish Tank by Andrea Arnold. I used that film as an inspiration for my role in Birthday Girl. Michael had introduced the film to me, and I think it is one of my favourite films now,” the actress explains. “I’d like to work with Luca Guadagnino. That would just complete me—Call Me By Your Name is another favourite of mine. It was one of the first adult films that I watched when growing up.”
With such an incredible start to her career and some phenomenal performances, it would surprise us in the slightest if at some point Flora might land herself a role with such esteemed directors. The future truly is bright, and with her new best pal Trine Dyrholm to have coffee with, the world really is hers to take.
Birthday Girl is available through Digital on Demand and then Cry Wolf is available on Channel 4 with Walter Presents.
