Danish Oscar Entry The Girl With The Needle drops dark and mysterious first trailer

It doesn’t help to clarify much, but the film’s official synopsis reads as follows: “Inspired by a true story and directed by Magnus von Horn (The Here After, Sweat), The Girl With The Needle follows Karoline, a young factory worker, as she is struggling to survive in post-WW1 Copenhagen. When she finds herself unemployed, abandoned and pregnant, she meets Dagmar (Trine Dyrholm), a charismatic woman running an underground adoption agency, helping mothers to find foster homes for their unwanted children. With nowhere else to turn, Karoline takes on the role of a wet-nurse. A strong connection is formed between the two women, but Karoline’s world shatters when she stumbles upon the shocking truth behind her work.”

The Dagmar in question is the real-life notorious Danish figure Dagmay Overbye. We won’t spoil why she’s so infamous here, but Google her if you’re in need of a new rabbit hole. Still, a Wikipedia page won’t capture everything that’s going on here. “In The Girl With the Needle we meet a poor woman living up in an attic, a prince on a white horse who turns out to be a coward, a monster without a face but with a heart of gold, and a witch in a candy store. A fairytale for grown-ups,” von Horn wrote in a director’s note. “This is the style we have chosen to use to tell a story that happened a long, long time ago but addresses a matter so close to us today: the unwanted, and what we ARE to do with them.”

The Girl With The Needle premieres December 6 in the US and Canada.