Asta Nielsen
Acting
Biography
Asta Nielsen is often considered the 'first international movie star', and was an explosively popular female lead through the 1910s and 20s. Though born in Denmark, she mostly worked in Germany and starred in over 70 films, usually directed by her husband Urban Gad. She was known for her boyish looks and had her breakout in the erotically charged 'Afgrunden' (1910).
Born: September 11, 1881
Place of Birth: Vesterbro, Copenhagen, Denmark
Known For
The False Asta Nielsen
A doppelganger comedy made at the height of Asta Nielsen's fame in which she plays dual roles. This film is considered lost.
Asta Nielsen - Europas erste Filmikone
Asta Nielsen: pioneer of cinema and first European film star, tragedienne and comedienne, writer and artist. As a working-class child and single parent, she works her way up from the bottom - and consciously stages herself as the first role model for independent women and queers. We retell the story of this singular phenomenon with her own words and film clips.
Impossible Love
A deranged woman artist falls in love with a young sculptor. The impossible love ends tragically.
S1
The general's daughter spies on her fiancé to achieve information.
The Film in the Film
The only surviving excerpt of a documentary on film production in Weimar Germany, featuring the different personalities of several famous directors of the era at work on the set including Fritz Lang, Robert Wiene, and E.A. Dupont.
Hamlet
A free adaptation of Shakespeare′s drama. The Danish queen masquerades her daughter as a boy, and thus, the girl lives her life as 'Prince' Hamlet. Her father poisoned by a venomous snake placed by the treacherous Claudius, Hamlet fakes madness to investigate without suspicion.
Den talende muse - samtaler med Asta Nielsen
Documentary feature about film diva Asta Nielsen based in part on previously unseen material from private archives of Frede Smith.
Joyless Street
In 1921, we follow two women - Marie and Grete - from the same poor Viennese neighborhood, as they try to better the lives of themselves and their families during the period of Austrian postwar hyperinflation.
Poor Jenny
Jenny, a cleaner, is seduced by a local playboy, Edouard. Jenny's parents reject her after she spends the night with him. She finds a job as a vaudeville dancer, but ultimately winds up in the gutter.
The Abyss
Magda, a piano teacher, meets Knud, a parson’s son, who invites her to spend the summer at his parents’ parsonage. When a travelling circus stops in the village, Magda leaves the meek Knud for the dashing circus rider Rudolf. But circus life with Rudolf quickly turns out to be anything but happy, and Magda comes to a tragic end.
Filmography
as Self (archive footage)
as Self – Interviewee (archive footage)
as (archive footage)
as Self (archive footage)
as Herself
as herself (archive footage)
as Vera Holgk
as Elsie Lindtner
as Selma Karchow
as Clarina
as Auguste - Old Street Walker
as Tamara
as Anna Grosser
as Tibetanerin
as Hedda Gabler
as Maria Lechner (Mizzi)
as Josephine
as Self
as Maria Magdalena
as Kaja Falk
as Navarro
as Lulu
as Vanina
as Brigantenbraut
as Julie
as Nastassja Baraschkowa
as Mary Verhag
as Hamlet
as Elena
as Mata Hari
as Sonja Waler - Journalist - Her Daughter
as Henriette Mauclerc
as Komtesse Ysabel, grevindens datter
as Dora Waren
as Eskimo Ivigtut
as Lotte
as Thilda Wardier
as Lis
as Dora Brandes
as Sabine Schulze
as Jesta Schneider
as Jesta
as Herself
as Zigeunerin Zirzi
as Jesta
as Ruth Breton
as Von Hessendorffs Tochter
as Nelly Panburne
as Juanita
as Jesta Müller
as Kamma
as Zidra
as Sanna
as Bella Burk
as Jenny Schmidt
as Camille
as Miss May Wolton
as Luscha
as Annie
as Stella, cirkusdanserinde
as Olga, Mademoiselle Yvonne
as Jonna
as Magda Vang