Danish filmmaker Mads Hedegaard faced an unusual challenge while making his Stone Age epic Stranger: crafting entirely new languages to ensure authenticity. Determined to make the story immersive, he refused to let his actors speak modern languages.
"I have a background in documentaries [Cannon Arm and the Arcade Quest], so it had to feel real," he explained to Variety before the film’s world premiere at Sweden’s Goteborg Film Festival. "We’re not going to buy it if the actors talk in Danish or English."
Creating a Language from Scratch
To achieve realism, Hedegaard turned to linguist Tobias Søborg, who combined elements from ancient Siberian tribal languages with Mayan dialects and influences from early Anatolian tongues.
"We had a dictionary and grammatical rules. Poor actors — they had to learn much more than just their lines," Hedegaard recalled. Søborg was present on set, coaching actors on pronunciation.
A Story of Survival and Society
Set in 4000 BC, Stranger follows Aathi, a young woman whose family, among the first farmers in southern Scandinavia, is attacked by a hunter tribe. To survive, she integrates into their world.
"When we think about the Stone Age, we think about warriors. Her story is more human: it’s about society and passing things on," said Hedegaard.
Produced by Andreas Hjortdal and sold by REinvent International Sales, the film evokes comparisons to Apocalypto and The Revenant, but Hedegaard and his team found themselves venturing into uncharted storytelling territory.
Echoes of the Present
Despite its ancient setting, Stranger explores timeless themes: fear of outsiders, resistance to change, and human impact on the environment. "We think Stone Age people were primitive, but they had jealousy, hate — all the emotions we know today," Hedegaard noted. He argues that civilization began not in Ancient Greece or Egypt, but in this era, with the first disputes over land ownership and environmental exploitation.
"So did climate change, you could argue, as people started cutting down trees and burning forests. It’s a story that repeats itself. We haven’t become any wiser."
A Filmmaker’s Leap into Fiction
Making Stranger was a major step for Hedegaard, who had only worked on documentaries before. "You go from making a documentary to standing in a Hungarian forest, managing 100 people — how fun is that?" he joked.
Still, at its core, Stranger is about human connection.
"I love world-building, but it always comes down to the story. Stranger is about people meeting people. We can do it with respect, or with prejudice. Hopefully, this film makes us think about it."
