A Study of Empathy is already a hit on the festival circuit, having won the Golden Leopard for Best Short at the 2023 edition of Locarno and screening at numerous festivals since then. The film is a sharp and pointed examination of the art world and human interaction, as Dana welcomes art student Penelope to her home to participate in her performance. The meeting between both women takes an unexpected turn for Dana and leaves her disturbed.

Director Hilke Rönnfeldt, born by the Baltic Sea coast in Northern Germany, and with Danish-Icelandic roots, graduated as a screenwriter at Swedish Alma Education and as a film director at the Super16 independent film-school collective in Copenhagen. Cineuropa talked to her about the origins of and reactions to the film as she waits to screen it at Karlovy Vary IFF as part of EFP’s Future Frames (see the news).

Cineuropa: I’ve read that part of the inspiration for the film came from an art project that you participated in. Can you tell us more about this?
Hilke Rönnfeldt: What I remember most about this performance was the feeling I was left with when it was over. I was unsure what emotional reaction I was being asked for and what kind of feelings I was supposed to show, as the artist was openly disappointed with my, let’s call it, “non-reaction”. I was in doubt as to whether I was an unempathetic, emotional prick.
Several years have passed, and I am not in doubt any more about my emotional reactions, but I find it fascinating how easy it is to become uncertain about your feelings and get manipulated, especially when you are constantly comparing yourself with others. Showing empathy or exhibiting your feelings is just a click away, and your heart flies off. It feels like the norm. Well, maybe this is just the reserved Scandinavian stereotype in me speaking…

It strikes me as a dramatic irony that the film allows the audience to feel empathy for Dana, something that she’s been denied.
Yes, that’s so amazing, and there is a lot of irony in that fact. We discovered these meta-layers in the process, and decided to play more with it and make it part of the film. It is also me, at the beginning of the movie, as a film student who is making her graduation film, asking the audience to be part of the experience. And at the same time, I went through my creative process as a filmmaker with our team and the actresses.

The film has already had a successful run on the festival circuit. I’m curious about how you’ve found the audience reactions.
They can be so different, but there is almost always this moment when the artist starts her performance: the giggles and laughter stop in the cinema, and you feel the confusion in the room. And the first release happens when we get to see the main character Dana’s reaction, as if the audience finally feels allowed to genuinely react to this absurdity when they get the confirmation that they are feeling the right thing. I love this moment because it’s Dana’s reaction that determines our take on the situation. And after that moment of tension, there are usually a lot more laughs, so people have got that off their chests, apparently.

What about the aesthetics of the film, such as the muted yellow and orange of the first half, and the stark purple of the second?
We played with the concept of duality, and we wanted to work with two colours representing the worlds of the characters. We were thinking about the quality of a warm, cosy, nest-like pastel yellow that develops into a sharper version of orange towards the end of the film, and the purple going from a pastel version into a sharper purple and being more on a cold spectrum, representing the character traits. Both characters live in their bubbles that clash, and a real meeting could have happened outside, in front of the gallery – and it does, but both characters cannot address their feelings and instead meet on a different, emotional level.

What projects do you have coming up?
I am still madly in love with the short-film format, so there’s a new short called Duty Free, about unconditional love in a floating bordershop in the Baltic Sea, coming up, and I am developing two feature-length projects with LIM Less Is More and Torino Script Lab this year.