Anna Fredrikke Bjerke is a director and filmmaker from in Oslo, Norway. She holds an interdisciplinary B.A. from Central Saint Martins and an M.A. from New York University, where she self-directed her curriculum to focus on the intersectionality of film and gender politics. She has participated in Mediefabrikken’s directing workshop and its directing initiative for women. In 2018, Anna began a body of work entitled Certain Women, which is a quartet of short films that explore themes relating to the female-identifying experience. She is currently working on her first feature film while continuing to pursue short form projects, while curating a screening and talk series at Kulturhuset in Oslo, which celebrates accomplished and emerging filmmakers. Anna will be making her debut directing for theatre with the Scandinavian premiere of The Pussy Grabber Plays in 2019.
The inspiration for THE WAY THINGS END comes from a deeply personal place. It is inspired by my own experiences of breaking up a friendship, as well as painful and honest conversations with friends about moving on from unhealthy relationships. It is a poetic narrative short film about two close friends, who have grown apart and are experiencing the painful truth of how a shift in perspective can end a life-long friendship. Told from the perspective of Sofia, a struggling twenty-something queer actress, who is finding it painful to break things off with her former partner-in-crime and soulmate, Isabel, who Sofia never though she would be without. It is an honest portrayal of the complexities and uniqueness of a female friendship, which, despite difficult to imagine anything getting in the way of, proves that even the strongest bonds can be broken.
What these two friends have shared in the past, which we witness through flashbacks, is that feeling of when we spend time with certain friends, regardless of when we saw them last we fall into the same rhythm and feeling of being completely understood. Defining moments we’ve shared, secrets that no one else knows, our painful habits and the depth of our insecurities. Whether the friendship fades away or fall through, we grow apart or intentionally break away, friendship breakups affect our emotions deeply. It fills you with doubt and guilt and a feeling of betrayal. We ask ourselves if we really knew the person as well as we thought, or if we misjudged their character. THE WAY THINGS END explores the psychology behind friendship breakups and why they are so painful, our emotional response and the beginning of the journey back to healing ourselves.
The story was developed and supported through production by Mediefabrikken’s directing initiative for women, which is intended for first-time directors who write, direct and produce their submitted projects over the course of a three-month period. The participants have only one production day and are expected to complete their projects within two months of principle photography. The initiative is created with the intention to promote more women directors in Norway and is funded by the Norwegian Film Institute. THE WAY THINGS END received a post-production fund from Oslo’s regional film center, Viken UNG.
LGBTQ+ Toronto Film Festival 