Illustration: Mathias Krogsøe

In the recent report “Investigation of Ethnic Diversity in Danish Film” the Danish Film institute concludes that despite several initiatives, only limited progress has been made with ethnic diversity in Danish film, both in front of and behind the camera, for the past ten years.

According to Danish film critic Nanna Frank Rasmussen, this can be a democratic problem:

“If some people are never being heard, never being portrayed, never being represented, you risk those people not seeing themselves on screen, that they feel that they are not worthy of representation. That they don’t matter, that their voice is not important enough to be heard, or that they look in a certain way that is not acceptable by society. And that can lead to social turbulence.”

Last month a group of Danish actors of color created the campaign “A Bigger Picture,” where they recreated four Danish movie posters to be more ethnically diverse to bring attention to the lack of ethnic representation in the currently very white Danish movie industry.

Nanna Frank Rasmussen believes campaigns like this can change the industry:

“I do think that it will change. I’m not sure if it will change very quick, but I do think it will change eventually.”

You can listen to the full Radio interview with Nanna Frank Rasmussen (originally aired on “Cinema Radio” on March 20th, 2023) right here: