Lone Scherfig

Lone Scherfig (Danish: [ˈloːnə ˈɕɛɐ̯fi]) (born 2 May 1959) is a Danish film director and screenwriter. She is especially known for her films Italian for Beginners (2000) and An Education (2009), and is also known for her romantic comedies, such as One Day (2011).

Lone Scherfig graduated from the National Film School of Denmark in 1984.

She initially worked in the advertising business and won awards (including the Lion d'Argent) at the Cannes International Advertising Film Festival.^{[citation needed]}

Scherfig began her career as a director with the television film Margrethes elsker in 1985. Her directorial debut in film came with Kaj's fodselsdag. The film was critically successful and garnered her the Grand Jury prize and the Club Espace Award at the Rouen Nordic Film Festival. For a period of time following such success, Scherfig wrote and directed a few short films, and worked with both radio shows and the stage.^{[citation needed]}

She directed the film Når mor kommer hjem (1998), which received the Grand Prix at the Montreal Film Festival and the Cinekid Award in Amsterdam.^{[citation needed]}

Scherfig made her international breakthrough with the film Italian for Beginners (2000), which was critically acclaimed and won several awards, including the Jury Grand Prix Silver Bear award at the Berlin International Film Festival. Hailed as a feel-good movie, the film is preoccupied with themes of hope, happiness, and choice. It is credited as the most profitable Scandinavian film to date.

Following the creative constraints of the Dogme 95 movement, Scherfig set the film almost entirely on location within a small space, used sound found only at the source, and shot it on video. The film involves several characters and their various romantic or other interactions that unfold across this limited setting. As opposed to many other Dogme 95 films, Scherfig's is rather upbeat and comedic. It has been noted for its rather amusing tone.

Following Italian for Beginners, Scherfig made the deadpan comedy Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself, released in 2002. This film, not considered a part of the Dogme 95 canon, is a touching movie centered on a suicidal man who is constantly saved and cared for by his brother. Noted by critics to be a surprisingly lighthearted affair, the movie was praised for Scherfig's ability to craft deep and interesting characters. Critic A.O. Scott mused that the film's tone "ranges from stoic to diffident to quizzical, at least on the surface. But there is an undercurrent of deep and complicated feeling beneath the Scottish reserve; it is signalled by the music, and by Ms. Scherfig's exquisite sense of nuance." Scherfig worked closely with the prolific writer Anders Thomas Jensen in developing a screenplay for this film. She aligned her work with the production companies Sigma Films and Zentropa. Although well received, Wilbur was not as commercially successful as Italian for Beginners. It served as a catalyst for her Dogme 95 related project called the Advance Party, in which both Scherfig and Jensen helped write characters for Lars Von Trier.