The Angry Smile

In Depth with the Director - Vanja Holmaa

Tell us a little about yourself and your background in filmmaking.

I am Vanja Holmaa, 24 years old, and am from Denmark. I am studying at a film school in Aarhus, “Multiplatform Storytelling and Production”, check it out, it’s really cool. I love to explore cultural subjects and challenge myself, even though I’m pretty new to filmmaking. 

How did The Angry Smile first come together as a project?

It was a subject given at our school, where we had to make a collaboration with a fashion designer. We worked with Martyna Brechelke: She is born in Poland and has a very cool style where she often mixes feelings with fabric. 

As a collaboration with designer Martyna Brechelke, focus on the fashion itself is paramount. How did this affect you as a director around the look of the film?

Martyna was very open to my thoughts about the collection and my own associations born from it. The collection was already called “The Angry Smile” back then so I started my brainstorm through that. 

What was the process like in developing a film around an understated social phenomenon like passive-aggressiveness? Did you immediately know how you wanted to portray it?

No, we didn’t. In the beginning we wanted there to be only one person in the whole film, so she was all alone in the world and couldn’t see herself in anyone. But passive aggressiveness is relational, so we needed more people. First it was supposed to be robots and the main character, but then it felt emotionless - funny looking back on that idea now.

The use of colour is wonderful throughout the film with some deep, vibrant reds. What was your thought process in arranging the colours of the film?

Well Martyna had some scarves in yellow red and orange colors, so we were inspired by those: We thought of 3 rooms with those colors and a separate reality removed from those rooms for the main character. And then we wanted the disconnected/passive aggressive group of people to be colorless, and give them the same strict, sharp make up, to make them feel like a unit, even though they were in separate scenes. We also used mood boards to visualize all of this before we shot the movie. When we actually filmed it, the red tone looked best on camera, so we stuck with mostly the red tone; which represents both love and blood and intensity. Or whatever you want it to be representing.

What was the biggest challenge in bringing this project together?

Martyna was very open about my group interpreting her collection how we wanted, so we were very lucky with that. The biggest challenge was to write the monologue so it felt balanced. So it wasn’t too abstract, weird and analyzable or too overexplained, boring or direct. We needed the speech to be necessary to understand the film, so it was definitely writing that was the biggest challenge.

What projects are coming for you in the future? 

I just finished a short documentary actually. About a UK couple who just moved to Lofoten, in the Northern part of Norway. I  hope the film poses these questions: How do we grow as people? Who are we outside of our jobs and backgrounds? What is a home? The film will be sent to festivals, so I hope it goes well.

Do you have any message for our Melbourne audience?

Enjoy the short film! And remember to smile at strangers some times, when you’re walking down the street - maybe it will make your day even better.