Marion Cotillard is a merciless Snow Queen in 'The Ice Tower', filmed in Alto Adige

BERLIN - “Colder than ice, her kiss pierced straight to my heart, which was already a piece of ice”.  Lucile Hadžihalilovic’s La Tour de Glace (The Ice Tower), Franco-German co-production in competition at the Berlinale, betrays a fascination with cinema, fusing reality and fiction, placing sixteen-year-old Jeanne (Clara Pacini), who has just run away from an orphanage, at a studio where The Snow Queen is being filmed. The Queen is played by the beautiful, mysterious Cristina (Marion Cotillard), a tormented diva who fascinates Jeanne to the point that she becomes completely absorbed in that fantasy world. Cristina is as mysterious as the Snow Queen she plays.  No longer as brilliant as she once was, with her moment of glory in the past, the actress repeatedly and obsessively scrutinizes her screen self, and what she sees reflected in the girl who reminds her of herself as a child.

The film, inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale, with the mirror that corrupts and makes beauty disappear replaced by the camera, made its public debut in a magically snowy Berlinale, a weather event that hadn't been seen for years. "There is something fascinating about snow, first of all because it falls from the sky. Then there is a beauty in the fact that each flake is unique", commented Marion Cotillard who defined her arrival in Berlin as "quite poetic".

"I have always had the tendency to make films that resemble fairy tales, because I find it a way to reach a place deep inside me”, noted the director at the press conference. “I think that all my films tell stories of growth, of obstacles that bring maturity. So the fairy tale form lends itself very well. In The Snow Queen, it was the figure of the Queen that intrigued me enormously. I wondered: who is she? What does she represent? What does her palace mean? This female figure, a symbol of power and knowledge, both frightening and magnetic, was a truly exciting starting point. And for once, it was a girl embarking on this journey and this fight”.

The talented Clara Pacini plays sixteen-year-old Jeanne. “We didn’t do any rehearsals for this film. I had already met Clara, I was very intimidated when I met her” revealed Marion Cotillard, “first because she is very charismatic and then because the relationship between our two characters is very unusual. There is a fascination, an attempt at domination and also a certain violence. We met at my house and I remember that I didn’t dare look her in the eyes. I actually didn’t feel at ease for the whole meeting; after all, that marked the beginning of the work. There was already something between us, and I let myself be completely carried away”.

The Italian location in Alto Adige: an atmosphere between dream and nightmare

The Franco-German co-production - 3B Productions and Davis Films, Sutor Kolonko, Arte France Cinéma and Bayerischer Rundfunk in collaboration with Arte – behind La Tour de Glace chose to shoot some of the film’s most evocative scenes in the Alto Adige mountains, immersing the viewer in an atmosphere hanging somewhere between a dream and a nightmare, and creating an almost metaphysical place where cinema and reality intertwine as if in a game of mirrors.

The Italian shoot took place in some of the most fascinating places in Alto Adige, chosen for their evocative character and the fairytale atmosphere they lend the film. The locations included: Caldaro and Lake Caldaro, a body of water that, especially in winter, is almost surreal, shrouded in fog and an atmosphere lost in time, and an ideal place to accentuate the sense of isolation and mystery of the film; Merano, famous for its aristocratic past and Art Nouveau buildings; and the South Tyrolean capital Bolzano, which hosted several scenes, taking advantage of its mix of Central European architecture, historic alleys and natural settings. Another location was Magré sulla Strada del Vino, a small village with ancient charm, stone streets and historic houses, which was used for some of the film's most intimate sequences.

The film was supported by IDM Film Commission Südtirol in the production phase during filming in South Tyrol. The South Tyrolean production company, Albolina Film, provided the service for the filming on location.