Armadillo Wins Grand Prix - de la Semaine de la Critique

How is it to be in Cannes?
It's a bit of a circus and it's exhausting to talk to so many people. But it's also a chance to get the film out to the international audience and create an awareness around the reality of war. Part of our intention was also to bring a poor farmer in Afghanistan onto the world stage.

What triggered your desire to make Armadillo?
When you start exploring what war movies are, you are confronted with the mythological dimension of war and start to reflect on the good and the bad, the civilised and the barbaric, masculinity and violence. These are huge philosophical topics and artistic challenges that I was interested in exploring. Even the Odyssey is about war.

How did you approach the Armed Forces in Denmark and what was their role throughout the shooting?
Armadillo started as part of a TV series for TV2 Denmark. Six Danish directors were asked to do ½ hour films about the conflict in Afghanistan from a character-driven human perspective. Armadillo was the only film where I as a director chose to get really involved with the action in Afghanistan. We didn't know how much time we'd be able to stay there. When we started spending three weeks at camp Armadillo, it was quite clear there was a big film waiting to be told. At that time, we were well integrated with the Army. It wasn't difficult for us to come back to Camp. They were quite open and accommodating.

The casting and procedure of finding the characters we did before going to the front line. We spent three months of intense research, casting and pre-shooting at training and exercise camps with the soldiers, just to find out if it was at all possible to film war. I needed to understand if it was possible to be in the middle of firing lines with a camera. It turned out that it wasn't too difficult. We were just basically dovetailing a couple of soldiers. We always knew where they were and they always knew where we were.

How did you shoot the two battle scenes?
We were always filming with two cameras and some soldiers were wearing helmet cameras. I would film together with my photographer. We would position ourselves out or within the platoon to get into action. So we were sometimes between the soldiers in the platoon, on one of the vehicles that supported the action, or inside the camp, at the coordination centre with the commander. We were able to cover the mechanism and strategy of how the battles unfolded. We needed to film the communications between the soldiers to make people understand what was going on.

What about the second attack where Taliban soldiers were killed?
The photographer Lars Skee was with the platoon, there were soldiers with their cameras and I was inside the camp filming from there. It was frightening because I was cut out at the end. There was also what you call a ‘quick response force', another platoon ready to move out when soldiers get into heavy resistance. I went out with them. But my photographer was with the platoon who ambushed the Taliban.

War cameramen usually say that holding a camera creates a distance between the action and its representation. Did you feel the same?
Yes, you have something to concentrate on. But I don't think it's so much different for soldiers. They concentrate on their weapons which is a sort of a camera.

The work on the editing room must have been huge. How many hours of filming did you have to work on?
I think we probably had 300-350 hours of material. Obviously editing was a long process. Chief editor Pierre K. Kirkegaard did an immense job. He had two additional editors working with him. After filming in Afghanistan, I took the material with me to New York for months. I looked at it for several months, making annotations. We started editing on October 5 and finished probably April 1st.

I've heard that the film has triggered a heated political debate in Denmark and that there might be an inquiry into the soldiers' behaviour ...
The Army is looking into the case. This is a political decision. They have to do it and handle public reaction in Denmark. The soldiers can't be seen as people walking around shooting people for no good reason. They have to address what happened. I just hope that no one will get sentenced because I hope the soldiers were doing the right thing. It's a tragedy when people are killed and it's a double tragedy if you start questioning the reasons behind the killing. I like the soldiers I filmed, I care for them so what is happening to them is also quite emotional for me. 

Is there a national debate in Denmark about war in Afghanistan like in the UK for instance?
I think it's more present in the UK and in the US than it has been in Denmark. It's a film about Danish soldiers so it's probably easier for other countries to marginalise it and look at it as someone else's problem. However I know Armadillo will be shown theatrically in the UK and on Channel 4.