Closed ahead of a Haugesund Pitch, ‘Virginia Dentata’ has also signed up Dana Bunescu, editor of ‘4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days’
“Vagina Dentata,” the new film from Norwegian filmmaker Nataša Urban, whose “The Eclipse” won top honors at CPH:DOX in 2022, has been boarded by Manifest Film.
The Romanian outfit will co-produce “Vagina Dentata,” a genre-bending exploration of motherhood and postnatal depression that will be pitched at this week’s Nordic Co-Production Market in Haugesund.
Produced by Ingvil Giske through Norway’s Medieoperatørene, the project is currently 60% financed, with most of the secured funding coming from the Norwegian Film Institute.
In another addition to the film, Romanian editor Dana Bunescu — whose credits include Cristian Mungiu’s “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” Cristi Puiu’s “The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu,” Călin Peter Netzer’s “Child’s Pose” and Alexander Nanau’s Oscar-nominated documentary “Collective” — is attached to edit.
The team is now seeking additional co-production partners in France, Germany and/or Hungary, alongside further financing, distribution and festival connections.
“Vagina Dentata” is one of 21 projects being presented at the Nordic Co-Production Market, part of New Nordic Films during the Norwegian International Film Festival in Haugesund, which runs this week.
Urban said the film was born out of the gap between cultural expectations surrounding motherhood and her own experience after becoming a parent.
“When I became a mother, what I experienced was in no way what I had been told it would be like. Instead of sunshine and butterflies, all I could think about was death,” she said. “I was terrified — a feeling that is the baseline and driving force of this film, one that I hope many others will recognize.”
The project uses horror and darkly comic genre elements to approach the psychological pressures of motherhood, extending Urban’s interest in personal experience as a route into broader social and political terrain.
For Giske, “Vagina Dentata” also marks another collaboration with Urban after their previous work together.
“It is such a pleasure working with Nataša again, her films are both wild, funny, serious and beautiful,” Giske said. “I feel there is a need to get more diverse stories about motherhood and Haugesund as a relatively small venue is the perfect place to meet with potential collaborators.”
Giske added that previous trips to Haugesund had produced partnerships the company had not originally anticipated. “Last time I was here, we set up a co-production with a country I did not initially intend to work with, so I am really looking forward to seeing what will happen this time.”
The Nordic Co-Production Market brings together Nordic and international producers, financiers, distributors and sales agents around projects in development.
For “Vagina Dentata,” the immediate goal is to use the market to close the remaining financing and expand the project’s European co-production structure ahead of production.