Edith Carlmar started out at as dancer and an actress at the age of 15, and went on to become the first female director in Norwegian cinema - and one of Norwegian film history's most successful directors at that.
Born Edith Mathiesen to a single mother in Christiania (Oslo), Edith grew up in poor conditions in a working class district on Oslo's east end, and at times even in foster-care, because her mother could not afford to have her daughter living at home. Despite this Edith managed to train as a dancer, and at the age of fifteen she made her on-stage debut at the Kongshavn Bath variety stage. Four years later, in 1930, she also married the theater-, film- and business man Otto Carlmar. In 1936 she switched careers, from dancing to acting, and made her debut at Det Nye Teater in Oslo in 1936. While at the theater she became acquainted with Lillebil Ibsen, wife of noted film director Tancred Ibsen, who invited Carlmar to work as a script supervisor on his next film. This was the start of Carlmar's career in films, and by the next film she worked on she had already advanced to production secretary. Carlmar later stated that she always saw Ibsen as her great inspiration and mentor in the art of film.
The next few years Carlmar worked in both film and theater, but eventually withdrew from film-work during the war, on account of not wanting to work under the Nazi-controlled production environment in occupied Norway during World War II. However, in 1946 she returned, again working for Tancred Ibsen. In 1946 she was also awarded a grant by the National Federation of the Municipal Cinemas (Kommunale Kinematografers Landsforbund) to travel to Great Britian to study directing and production management. Carlmar went, and became a committed student, even being consulted on artistic evaluations of scenes and shots, as well as other aspects of the production she was to observe.
Inspired by her experiences in Great Britain she then established the production company Carlmar Film A/S with her husband Otto, in February of 1949. With herself as director, and Otto as producer, the company would produce ten feature films over the course of the next decade.
Norsk Filminstitutt
