Director Asif Kapadia on Far North

We talk to The Warrior director Asif Kapadia about his Film4 co-production Far North, a dark and shocking fairytale set in an Arctic landscape

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In Asif Kapadia's Far North two women, Saiva and Anja (Michelle Yeoh and Michelle Krusiec) struggle to survive in harsh isolation, Saiva burdened by a shaman's tragic curse. Saiva discovers a wounded man, played by Sean Bean, and takes him back to their home where the women compete for the stranger's affections.

How did you come across the short story on which Far North is based?
I work with a co-writer Tim Miller who I also wrote The Warrior with, and we planned to meet up to see a film at the National Film Theatre. I was late getting there and Tim was looking through the book stalls out the front. He saw a name he recognized, Sara Maitland - someone he'd known years ago and lost touch with. She had written a collection of short stories and he flicked through it and looked at the shortest one, called 'True North' and read its four pages. He thought it was really powerful. I loved it, and I was shocked by the dark ending.

When I went to the Arctic with The Warrior for the film festival in Trondheim in the north of Norway, I had the idea that we should make a movie of this short story in Norway.

The story seems like a folk story and the shocking ending has a mythic quality. Was Sara Maitland's piece based on a traditional tale?
Sara's stories are all dark fairytales to do with women. She is known as a feminist writer. She takes these dark tales from all over the world and gives them her own twist. The ending is based in an idea that is historical and mythical - there are stories like this from Mexico, Japan, all over the world.

Was it difficult filming in such a harsh environment?
In theory it seems really hard, but once you get there you can see how you can do it. One of the runners at the film festival who was driving me around told me about this remote Norwegian island that he thought I should visit as a possible setting for the film.

Did you have trouble casting for a film set in those conditions?
I had a casting director who had previously worked with Ang Lee and he had done casting for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I said I needed an actress who would have the right personality to deal with this situation, who could be out there in the middle of nowhere with no trailers and no five-star hotels.

We lived on a ship, a Russian ice breaker - all the cast and crew living together and eating together, for four weeks. We would park the ship at the location, jump off and spend all day there and at the end of the day go back on the ship. While we were asleep the ship would go off to the next location. So I needed a person with a certain kind of personality who would be able to handle that. My casting director knew Michelle Yeoh and recommended her as a good actress and a strong person.

Next page • "The first scene we shot was of Sean Bean running naked across the Arctic landscape"