“I link the character’s body to my own so I can feel their pain”: Emilie Blichfeldt on The Ugly Stepsister

Few films manage to elicit the effect of a log line in their title, but because of how familiar we all are with the fairy tale of Cinderella, the immediate connection to her adversary is a given.

The Ugly Stepsister has the guts (in every sense of the word) to flip the age-old narrative and tell the story from the unfavored antagonist’s point of view.

At the Berlin Film Festival, The Upcoming spoke to director Emilie Blichfeldt about the inspiration behind the body horror approach to a childhood classic and the physical transformation of a character willing to cut off her toes in order to fit into a glass slipper.

Selina Sondermann

The Ugly Stepsister is released nationwide on 25^th April 2025. Read our review here.

Watch the trailer for The Ugly Stepsister here: