Bonaparte

Remember those early days of lockdown? Well, it wasn’t puzzles and sour dough starters for everyone. Domestic violence skyrocketed during the pandemic. Bonaparte zooms in on what happens when you’re suddenly trapped with your violent partner.

Karantænefilmene - Rules

Come quarantine, a group of filmmakers came together and issued a challenge, a manifest. You have two weeks to make a short film. You have to obey all the rules of the lockdown. There can’t be any expenses. Everything under the tag ‘Karantænefilmene’ – The Quarantine Movies. Directors from all over Denmark took part in the challenge, and all of the movies were uploaded to a website for everyone to see.

Jesper Quistgaard got approached by the team and agreed, even though a bit pressured considering running a business doing lockdown. Usually, his short films take a year to make. This time he had two weeks. It didn’t really make sense, so naturally he said yes. The movie happened because of the two actors, husband and wife, agreeing to be apart of the film. Since they already lived together, Jesper could film the entire thing without breaking any rules.

The revelance

The film happened to be quite successful, landing The Audience Award at Odense International Film Festival and getting a lot of positive reviews and press from all over. Maybe it was because the topic of domestic violence escalating during quarantine was intensely relevant. Maybe it was because it struck a cord with everyone knowing how abuse looks. Either way, Bonaparte happened as part of a crazy challenge and ending up as a relevant and important piece of film.

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