SELF PORTRAIT

Why is it so difficult to let life unfold?
To let it grow and become what it wants?

Lene Marie Fossen

A story about shame, body and art. 

A child who takes the whole world in, unable to shut anything out. A kind of sensitivity some people do not grow out of.   

The Self Portrait is a film about Lene Marie Fossen who appears to be dying from anorexia.
She stopped eating when she was 10 years old. She didn't want to grow up. Twenty years later Lene still doesn't eat. The days are divided into four. Four nutritional drinks. And work.
The work of an artist. Lene is an up and coming, unique talent in the world of photography. She is facing an international breakthrough.

Critics claim she is among the best still photographers in our present time. She taught herself to be a photographer. Her knack for dramaturgy and ability to read the light is what makes her photography stand out. She captures the strength and soul in her subjects.   Her first solo exhibition will soon open. An exhibition consisting entirely of self portraits – will this be the first day of her new life? Can she rid herself of shame by exposing it?

Lene's photos give us a unique insight into her situation. The strength she finds in others, she tries to find in herself through her self portraits.  A way to confront her illness, even though the pictures might be unbearable to look at.

Raw, naked, honest. You have never seen Self Portraits like these.

For 18 years Lene has evaded help from the Norwegian Health Care system. Now she has reached a turning point and realized that she has to change to control her disease. If not, she will die. Our film will document Lene’s struggle. Her parents are by her side, exhausted,  but hopeful. Time is running out.  Lene’s sensitivity made her ill, but will that also be what saves her?

To throw the shame.
Expose to the world.
Say here I am, now I’m no longer hiding.

I have seen my pictures enlarged and framed,
hanging on a wall.
I’ve seen people look at them.
Something happens.
The images awaken the emotional in us.
The whole spectrum of emotions.
We all have our story we carry with us.
We stop, we consider, we start thinking.
Really thinking. Then the feelings come.
Isn’t that exactly what we want the art to do?

Lene Marie Fossen

CREDITS

PRODUSER: Margreth Olin for Speranza Film

DIRECTOR: Margreth Olin, Espen Wallin, Katja Høgset

CINEMATOGRAPHERS: Øystein Mamen & Espen Wallin

EDITOR: Helge Billing

Lene's website: https://www.lenemariefossen.com/