"The Ugly Stepsister" at Gandules

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Film still from "The Ugly Stepsister," directed by Emilie Blichfeldt (Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, 2025).

In her feature film debut, Norwegian director Emilie Blichfeldt adapts the tale of Cinderella with a combination of period melodrama, dark comedy and horror that satirizes aesthetic pressure, the dictatorship of beauty standards, and the obsession with the beautification of body and face by means of cosmetic surgery.

Aesthetic pressure is a central theme of horror cinema in recent years: The Substance (2024), “The Outside” (2022; episode directed by Ana Lily Amirpour for the series Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities) and the yet to be released Saccharine are good examples. The feature film debut of Norwegian Emilie Blichfeldt is another case. 

The Ugly Stepsister adopts the fairy tale narrative to bring horror and biting black humor to aesthetic pressure, the dictatorship of beauty standards and the obsession with beautifying the body and face through cosmetic surgery. This adaptation of Cinderella, specifically the Brothers Grimm’s version, one of the best known and bloodiest, follows the desperate path of one of Cinderella’s stepsisters (Lea Myren) to become the most beautiful woman in the kingdom and seduce the prince. 

Between majestic period cinema and camp delirium, The Ugly Stepsister is particularly unusual and daring in its approach to body terror. Blichfeldt recreates 19th-century aesthetic operations (in interviews, she says that her film is not historically rigorous but it does recreate real aesthetic procedures of the time). She shows them in all their brutality and cruelty, but also with a sense of humor and an aestheticism that reduces (somewhat) the impact. 

The Ugly Stepsister was nominated for the Oscar to the Best Makeup and Hairstyling, and offers one of the best performances of the horror cinema of recent years. Actor Lea Myren is extraordinary in the role of the stepsister determined at all costs to be the fairest.

The film will be screened in original version and subtitled in Catalan.

A film in the 2026 edition of Gandules Cinema in the Open Air.

Summer Cinema Under the Stars

Barcelona’s summer film festivals invite viewers to spend a balmy evening on the beach or in a courtyard watching an assortment of classic and contemporary flicks. Check out our article Summer Cinema Under the Stars where you'll discover the perfect place to spend an afternoon out of the heat or a night enjoying a film under the stars.

For more events check our online events calendar.