"You haven't been good for me, or nice to me." Burden of Proof is a compelling short film from Norway, made by a Norwegian filmmaker named Ivar Aase. After premiering at festivals in 2021 and 2022, it's now online to watch thanks to our friends at Short of the Week. "It's her words against his when Anna tries to make her ex understand what he has done to her." It's a one-take film shot from a very unique perspective - the camera is positioned far away from the two lead characters. It's filmed from above a bridge where Anna meets up with her ex Robert while we listen in from a recording. It's an uncomfortable conversation and this distant view gives it a whole other feel than if it was shot conventionally. Starring Helene Bergsholm and Dan Skjæveland. Even if it's hard to watch, this is a vitally important film confronting societal problems.
- 3/7/2023
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
It’s the honesty of Greta Gerwig’s “Lady Bird” that really makes the Saoirse Ronan-starring coming-of-age movie sing. Yes, it’s very funny and filled with enough genuinely great performances that it’s actually debatable which supporting star turns in the best work (it’s Laurie Metcalf, or maybe Beanie Feldstein, or possibly Tracy Letts), but what makes Gerwig’s movie such a gem is the honesty that infuses every part and every scene. Ronan’s Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson is a work-in-progress, but she’s also kind of a jerk, and Gerwig never shies away from showing the angstier, angrier side of growing up.
So often, high school-set features tend to lean into the more fun side of those four years, building up to the big dance or the big test or the big graduation, and while Lady Bird is consumed with getting to the next step,...
So often, high school-set features tend to lean into the more fun side of those four years, building up to the big dance or the big test or the big graduation, and while Lady Bird is consumed with getting to the next step,...
- 12/5/2017
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
Risky and risqué, indie films have always been a home for bold, honest, and controversial visions of teens’ sexuality. Eliza Hittman’s “Beach Rats,” opening this week after bowing at Sundance in January, is another notch in the belt of the sub-genre, a sensitive and often shocking look inside the coming-of-age of a young Brooklyn teen.
Like the best of these films, it’s not all about hormones; it builds on questions about identity and desire. But that’s there too, in sensitively crafted scenes that don’t skimp on reality. Punctuated by some bad choices and an unnerving final act, “Beach Rats” embraces the full spectrum of teen sexuality, even when it’s not exactly alluring.
Read More:Why ‘Beach Rats’ Breakout Harris Dickinson Isn’t Afraid Of Risqué Roles (Or Sex Scenes) — Sundance Springboard
Here are eight indie films that engage with the subject matter in appropriately intimate ways.
Like the best of these films, it’s not all about hormones; it builds on questions about identity and desire. But that’s there too, in sensitively crafted scenes that don’t skimp on reality. Punctuated by some bad choices and an unnerving final act, “Beach Rats” embraces the full spectrum of teen sexuality, even when it’s not exactly alluring.
Read More:Why ‘Beach Rats’ Breakout Harris Dickinson Isn’t Afraid Of Risqué Roles (Or Sex Scenes) — Sundance Springboard
Here are eight indie films that engage with the subject matter in appropriately intimate ways.
- 8/22/2017
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
Stars: Helene Bergsholm, Malin Bjørhovde, Beate Støfring, Matias Myren, Henriette Streenstrup | Based on the novel by Olaug Nilssen | Written and Directed by Jannicke Systad Jacobsen
I’ve had something of a soft spot for coming-of-age stories ever since I read Jd Salinger’s perennial classic The Catcher In The Rye. Whether it’s the tough but good-hearted lessons of Stand By Me and Almost Famous or bleak but profound entries into adult like The 400 Blows and Kes, they usually contain a great deal that I can relate to on an emotional and thematic level, even if I never grew up in Paris, toured with a rock band or found a dead body in my youth. I did get drunk in a park once, but that’s about it. Realistically I think I still enjoy these stories because, despite having been legally adult for quite some time, I still haven...
I’ve had something of a soft spot for coming-of-age stories ever since I read Jd Salinger’s perennial classic The Catcher In The Rye. Whether it’s the tough but good-hearted lessons of Stand By Me and Almost Famous or bleak but profound entries into adult like The 400 Blows and Kes, they usually contain a great deal that I can relate to on an emotional and thematic level, even if I never grew up in Paris, toured with a rock band or found a dead body in my youth. I did get drunk in a park once, but that’s about it. Realistically I think I still enjoy these stories because, despite having been legally adult for quite some time, I still haven...
- 4/28/2013
- by Mark Allen
- Nerdly
Based on the novel of the same title by Olaug Nilssen, Turn Me On, Goddammit tells the well-worn story of teenage sexual awakening but refreshingly explores the female perspective.
Alma is almost 16 and dreams about fellow classmate, Artur, climbing into her bedroom window at night. Playing guitar in the choir band, Artur has also attracted the attention of Alma’s friend Ingrid.
During the opening credits, Alma’s voice-over narration, emphasises the boredom of living in Skoddeheimen as we take a quick tour of the community: "Empty roads, more empty road.... stupid sheep..." Jacobsen doesn’t mess around with our first introduction to Alma; she challenges our expectations of the stereotypical bored female adolescent by showing her masturbating lying on her kitchen floor, listening to phone porn before the return of her mum interrupts her “down” time.
Later pre-“incident” scenes of Alma with her friends awaken painful, and often embarrassing,...
Alma is almost 16 and dreams about fellow classmate, Artur, climbing into her bedroom window at night. Playing guitar in the choir band, Artur has also attracted the attention of Alma’s friend Ingrid.
During the opening credits, Alma’s voice-over narration, emphasises the boredom of living in Skoddeheimen as we take a quick tour of the community: "Empty roads, more empty road.... stupid sheep..." Jacobsen doesn’t mess around with our first introduction to Alma; she challenges our expectations of the stereotypical bored female adolescent by showing her masturbating lying on her kitchen floor, listening to phone porn before the return of her mum interrupts her “down” time.
Later pre-“incident” scenes of Alma with her friends awaken painful, and often embarrassing,...
- 4/7/2013
- Shadowlocked
★★★★☆ Teen sex comedies are ten a penny these days, with 1999's American Pie giving birth to more than a decade's worth of cheap imitations. Whilst popular amongst cinemagoers of both sexes, the sub-genre remains predominantly male-driven, culminating in a sticky mess of prepubescent high jinx. Jannicke Systad Jacobsen's feature debut, Turn Me On, Goddammit (Få meg på, for faen, 2011), confronts this double standard, culminating in an appealingly unabashed examination of female sexual awakening. Our focus is on Alma (Helene Bergsholm) who, like her friends, shares little affection for her sleepy Norwegian hometown.
Read more »...
Read more »...
- 3/25/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
Turn Me On Dammit! opens with the film’s 15-year old protagonist lying on the floor listening to phone sex and masturbating while the family dog looks on in puzzlement and Mom is about to walk through the front door. It may seem like a scene out of Porkys or American Pie, and while there’s been a whole genre of movies dedicated to the healthy sexual interests of the horny teenage boy, this new Norwegian film shows sex-crazed hormonal development and carnal fantasies from a young girl’s perspective.
Alma (Helene Bergsholm) is a teen trapped in Skoddenheim, a boring rural burg where everything, according to her opening voice-over, is “stupid”. and she and her friends give its welcoming highway sign the finger every time they pass on their school bus. She’s lonely and horny for a hunky classmate Artur (Matias Myren), who visits her in her many sexual fantasies,...
Alma (Helene Bergsholm) is a teen trapped in Skoddenheim, a boring rural burg where everything, according to her opening voice-over, is “stupid”. and she and her friends give its welcoming highway sign the finger every time they pass on their school bus. She’s lonely and horny for a hunky classmate Artur (Matias Myren), who visits her in her many sexual fantasies,...
- 7/6/2012
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Teenage Alma takes on all of the taboos of Western sexuality in this delightful coming-of-age fairytale. Awarded "Best Screenplay" at the Tribeca Film Festival 2011, "Independent Distribution Award for Best Debut Film" at the International Rome Film Festival 2011 and Best European First Feature at the Mons International Love Festival (Belgium) in 2012, Jannicke Jacobsen.s debut directorial effort is as quirky as it gets. Starring Helene Bergsholm as 15-year-old Alma, bright and fresh as the Norwegian spring itself, .Turn Me On. takes on several modern taboos with humor and understanding. The result is that both adults and teens get a much-needed chance to look at, and laugh at, themselves. Olaug Nilssen.s novel .Turn Me On, Dammit. is a...
- 7/2/2012
- by Ron Wilkinson
- Monsters and Critics
The cinemascape is so overcrowded with tales of teenaged boys’ sexual awakenings -- of the rage of their adolescent horniness and the despair that it will ever be mollified, of the broad-spectrum suckitude of being no longer a child yet not quite an adult -- that even the best of these films feel tired and obvious. Is there nothing new to say in an overplayed subgenre? Perhaps: Turn Me On, Dammit! (Få meg på, for faen) is almost shocking in how it depicts 15-year-old Alma’s all-consuming confusion, anxiety, and sexual desperation: with a candid carnality the likes of which is de rigueur for the horny-boy subgenre, but is entirely absent from film when it comes to depicting the trials of adolescent girls. (There simply is no such a thing as the horny-girl subgenre.) Thoughts are romance are not alien to Alma (played with a refreshing vulgarity by Helene Bergsholm) -- she’s in love,...
- 6/27/2012
- by MaryAnn Johanson
- www.flickfilosopher.com
It’s a sad state of affairs that we have to pay special attention to a movie for being daring enough to say that teenage girls are horny, as if it’s some kind of state secret, but there it is. Teenage libido is such a gender-discordant subject that the male version is fodder for countless comedies, just another bodily urge in line with farting, while the female version is studied in coming-of-age eye-openers as a blossoming flower of self-body empowerment. It’s denigrating for all because it perpetuates the false mystique around both treatments that can so easily be explained by a fairly mundane fact of life: teenagers want to fuck.
The Norwegian comedy Turn Me On, Dammit! doesn’t play it like that. In fact, it seems frustrated by the veil and the hypocrisy involved. When we first meet Alma, the 15-year-old protagonist of the film played by newcomer Helene Bergsholm,...
The Norwegian comedy Turn Me On, Dammit! doesn’t play it like that. In fact, it seems frustrated by the veil and the hypocrisy involved. When we first meet Alma, the 15-year-old protagonist of the film played by newcomer Helene Bergsholm,...
- 5/8/2012
- by Arya Ponto
- JustPressPlay.net
There'll be a party following the single screening of Bad Fever this evening at the Downtown Independent Theater in Los Angeles. Nick Schager, originally for the Voice, now in the La Weekly: "Writer-director Dustin Guy Defa's stark indie trains its character-study gaze on Eddie (Kentucker Audley), a socially dysfunctional 20-something who — while living at home with his dour mom (Annette Wright), hanging out in empty diners and entertaining stand-up comedy dreams by recording anecdotes on cassette — strikes up a random romance with Irene (Eleonore Hendricks), who lives in an abandoned school and has a fondness for kinky videotaping. Eddie and Irene are kindred misfits in search of some direction and contentment, and if Defa's aesthetics are mundane, his leads' performances are not, especially in the case of Audley, whose darting eyes and hushed, stuttering speech express confused longing with transfixing, train-wreck magnetism."
The New Yorker's Richard Brody: "Defa exerts...
The New Yorker's Richard Brody: "Defa exerts...
- 4/2/2012
- MUBI
With all of the stories, movies, and television episodes dedicated to the horny teenage male, it's a bit of an understatement to say that the topic is well-covered. Regrettably, there's still a nasty double-standard in regards to the population of sexual-minded females -- their desires aren't looked at with the same respect that males get in those various forms of media, and that’s if they’re even represented at all. Better late than never, "Turn Me On, Dammit!" attempts to fill that void by not only having its main protagonist seemingly fueled by coitus, but by also targeting society's uneven treatment of sexual matters between boys and girls. Director Jannicke Systad Jacobson generally keeps things fresh and playful in a Godardian way, fooling with the plot's thread by the way of the “unreliable narrator” device and several instances that acknowledge the medium itself. But eventually the fun comes to an end,...
- 3/30/2012
- by Christopher Bell
- The Playlist
If the title of Jannicke Systad Jacobsen‘s Turn Me On, Dammit! has you expecting a raunchy comedy of flamboyant zest, it may not hurt to dial back your expectations a bit. We do get no less than two up-close-and-personal looks at Artur’s (Matias Myren) Dirk Diggler, and I’d be lying if I said our introduction to 15-year-old Alma (Helene Bergsholm) — the outright image of her exploring her pants under the tutelage of a phone-sex worker named “Stig” — is something you see at the movies every day.
But Jacobsen, working from her own adaptation of an Olaug Nilssen novel, approaches the material with a Norwegian bite that keeps the on-screen stuff at a sleety distance. What we’re meant to laugh out loud at like rowdy, foolish goons in a Judd Apatow movie plays severely differently here, and that generally gives the film a more interesting aura than...
But Jacobsen, working from her own adaptation of an Olaug Nilssen novel, approaches the material with a Norwegian bite that keeps the on-screen stuff at a sleety distance. What we’re meant to laugh out loud at like rowdy, foolish goons in a Judd Apatow movie plays severely differently here, and that generally gives the film a more interesting aura than...
- 3/30/2012
- by jpraup@gmail.com (thefilmstage.com)
- The Film Stage
Why She's On Our Radar: Norweigan filmmaker Jannicke Systad Jacobsen turned heads at last year's Tribeca Film Festival with her sweet (albeit provocatively titled) debut, "Turn Me On, Dammit!," a coming-of-age tale that turns turns the tables on its American counterparts by centering on a female teenager (Helene Bergsholm) who wants to get off. The film charmed the pants off of critics and audiences (our own Eric Kohn was a fan), and walked away from the festival with distribution via New Yorker Films in the Us. What's Next: "I'm writing my next script, which is an original idea," Jacobsen told Indiewire from Norway. "It's a tragic comic love story about people trying to be grownups. It's different, but I think it has some of the realistic bittersweetness. It's seeing everything subjectively from one person." The film, despite its racy title, is pretty endearing. How has the reception been in Norway,...
- 3/29/2012
- by Nigel M Smith
- Indiewire
Norwegian film Turn Me On, Dammit! is a coming of age story about the blossoming sexuality of a teenage girl, based on a novel by Olaug Nilssen. It is the feature debut of writer-director Jannicke Systad Jacobsen, and won "Best Screenplay" at the Tribeca Film Festival, "Best Debut Film" at the Rome Film Festival and "Best European First Feature" at the Mons International Love Film Festival (Belgium).Synopsis: 15-year-old Alma (Helene Bergsholm) is consumed by her out-of-control hormones and fantasies that range from sweetly romantic images of Artur, the boyfriend she yearns for, to down-and-dirty daydreams about practically everybody she lays eyes on. Alma and her best friend Sara live in an insufferably boring little town in the hinterlands of Norway called Skoddeheimen, a place they...
- 3/17/2012
- Screen Anarchy
"So, my friends, let's make music, together." What do we have here? Thanks to a tip from Jeff Wells, there's a trailer for a Norwegian film called Turn Me On, Dammit! that you've got to see, or rather hear, because it uses an Orson Welles sample in the music and it's amazing. The film, being released by New Yorker, is an "offbeat coming-of-age comedy with a deadpan sense of humor, enlivened by its rich sense of fantasy and frank but sweet approach to teen sexuality." Helene Bergsholm stars as the lead girl, and the film got a couple of rave reviews (see here or here). Now I am definitely curious to see it, as that was a terrific trailer. Watch the official Us trailer for Jannicke Systad Jacobsen's Turn Me On, Dammit!, via YouTube: In Skoddeheimen, 15-year-old Alma (HeleneBergsholm) is consumed by her hormones and fantasies that range from...
- 3/17/2012
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
One film I quite enjoyed at Tribeca Film Festival last year was Jannicke Systad Jacobsen‘s refreshingly honest Turn Me On, Dammit!. The coming-of-age film follows a teen girl (Helene Bergsholm) just learning about sex and successfully captures how hormones overtake every decision at that age. It went on to deservedly win Best Screenplay at the festival and is now getting a limited release this month here. We’ve got the trailer below, which decides to not include any of the Norwegian dialogue (and therefore no subtitles), but we get glimpse at our lead, her friends, and the town that she lives in (and hates, as we can see her flipping the bird when the sign passes on every bus trip). Check it out below via Apple.
Synopsis:
Turn Me On, Dammit! is a whimsical and refreshingly honest coming of age story about the blossoming sexuality of a teenage girl.
Synopsis:
Turn Me On, Dammit! is a whimsical and refreshingly honest coming of age story about the blossoming sexuality of a teenage girl.
- 3/7/2012
- by jpraup@gmail.com (thefilmstage.com)
- The Film Stage
Turn Me On, Dammit!, a new, offbeat Norwegian sex comedy set to hit theaters on March 30, deals with adolescent female sexuality in a way you rarely see on film, despite the glut of male-centered teen sex comedies like Superbad and the American Pie series, which are a dime a dozen. The film has received excellent reviews, and won awards for Best Screenplay at the Tribeca Film Festival and Best Debut Film at the Rome Film Festival. The movie revolves around fifteen-year-old Alma (played by seventeen-year-old Helene Bergsholm), whose out-of-control libido leads to her being shunned by her schoolmates and small Norwegian village. Yes, The Scarlet Letter is the operative analogy here. (Alma not-so-subtly wears red throughout the movie.) Alma daydreams about a handsome classmate named Arthur, who, in a pivotal scene, performs a lewd action that leads to Alma's sullied reputation. She also runs up her single mother'[...]...
- 3/7/2012
- Nerve
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