Yngvild Sve Flikke wrote and directed dramas and documentaries for the Norwegian National Broadcasting (NRK) for 17 years before making her feature film debut with “Women in Oversized Men’s Shirts” in 2015, which was nominated for The Dragon Award, four Amanda Awards, and three Kanon Awards. Her short film “Eple” won Timeglasset for best script at the 2017 Norwegian Short Film Festival. Flikke directed several episodes of “Home Ground,” which was Official Selection Berlinale in 2018, and won Gullruten for best Norwegian drama series and best female and male actor in 2018.

“Ninjababy” is screening at the 2021 SXSW Film Festival, which is taking place online March 16-20.

W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.

YSE: “Ninjababy” is about Rakel, a woman in her early 20s living a perfectly fine life with her best friend. She is a student who isn’t studying. When she finds out she is pregnant but too late to have an abortion, her world collapses. She’s not sure who the father is and being a mom has never been on her wish-list. Since abortion is no longer possible, adoption is her only solution. That’s when Ninjababy turns up, an animated character from Rakel’s imagination. He climbs out from her notebook and starts bugging her with his unpleasant questions and absurd whims.

The film is about growing up, friendship, dreams, desires, love, and learning to cope in difficult times. I wanted to make a fun and gritty movie about something deeply emotional: being pregnant.

With a combination of live-action and animation, “Ninjababy” moves playfully between comedy and desperate existentialism. It is an unpolished comedy about falling, fucking up, and getting up on your feet again.

W&H: What drew you to this story?

YSE: The idea started with an urge to work more with animation as a mode of expression in a live-action movie. In my debut film, “Women in Oversized Men’s Shirts,” I put in a couple of animations when the editing was done. This made me want to explore more. I’ve also done a series of animated shorts for kids, “Happiness.”

This — combined with the idea of a movie about the confusing feeling of pregnancy — led my thoughts to Inga Sætre and her wonderful graphic novel “The Art of Falling.” In this book, Rakel is younger and I knew we had to twist and turn the story to create the film I wanted to make. I also love Inga’s comics about the Grubby Girls and I knew her work with the animation studio Mikrofilm. She has done all the animation in “Ninjababy” and has been a very close collaborator in the realization of this film.

Inga has a rough, humorous, poetic style that connects to me — we’re both big fans of Michel Gondry, Jan Svankmajer, that kind of animation.

We worked on the script on and off for a couple of years, but it was not until screenwriter Johan Fasting came on board that the script really took off. He understood right away what we wanted to make, and gave us so many nice things to work with, like the character Ninjababy, who does not exist in the book.

W&H: What do you want people to think about after they watch the film?

YSE: I hope people feel a little more alive. And as in much of my work I try to question gender, and the limitations that the concept can have — how your own and others’ expectations affect you.

I want to give young people hope and older audiences a recognizable, embarrassing laugh.

As humans, we have to acknowledge that we’ll trip and fall many times in life, and that’s okay as long as you get up on your feet and move on — hopefully, a bit stronger and more in touch with who you are and who you want to be.

W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?

YSE: The biggest challenge was, as always, money. This film was made with funding from the Norwegian Film Institute’s talent program, New Ways. The program has a budget limit of $1 million, so we knew all along we couldn’t raise more money. In the process of making the movie, we tried to make this limit our friend, and I think we made some good decisions all the way. I had a small, but really fantastic team.

What we thought would be challenging was the combination of animation and live-action, but that worked out easier than we expected thanks to the time spent in development and pre-production.

W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.

YSE: I’ve had a close and creatively rewarding collaboration with producer Yngve Sæther at MOTLYS on several projects, including “Ninjababy.” With this film, I wanted to try things I hadn’t done much before, so New Ways was a great opportunity for us. The director’s vision was in focus due to the budget limit. The Film Institute covered up to 80 percent of the budget and the rest of the money we got from distributors, sales agents, TV pre-sales, and Nordisk Film & TV Fond.

W&H: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?

YSE: When I look back it seems inevitable that I would end up making movies. I’ve told stories in pictures, sound, writing, and on-stage all my life. I never went to film school, but I’ve worked as a host, journalist, director, and TV producer in the NRK, mostly with youth programs. It was a fantastic place to learn and explore the challenges of documentaries, drama series, and other formats.

Six years ago, I decided to establish myself as an independent filmmaker, to be free to decide my own projects and the aesthetics of film.

W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?

YSE: One of the best pieces of advice in connection with this film came from Icelandic animator Sara Gunnarsdottir. I contacted her to talk about her experience with her work on the film “Diary of a Teenage Girl.” During this project, she worked in New York while the editor and director worked in Belgium. She told me to put the animator and the editor as close as possible, which I did. It made the whole process of the animation very dynamic and fun, which was also thanks to the animator and the editor of “Ninjababy,” Inga and Karen Gravås, respectively.

I’ve gotten many bad pieces of advice, but so far none I haven’t managed to fix.

W&H: What advice do you have for other women directors?

YSE: I think the best advice I can give any woman who tries to get into areas where men are the majority is to work hard and speak up when you disagree. Don’t try to please anyone but yourself, and don’t fool yourself.

W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.

YSE: There are so many female directors I like and I find it easier to connect to movies made by women. When I saw “Wives” by Norwegian director Anja Breien, I felt she really spoke to me and my history as a Norwegian woman. The movie is a feminist response to John Cassavetes’ “Husbands” — one of my male-director favorites. “Wives” was made when I was just a baby, but when I saw it years later, it gave me inspiration and guts to make films from my specific female point of view.

I’ve also found inspiration in Jane Campion’s work and the way she explores human nature, especially female characters, placed in wonderful cinematic surroundings.

Films from directors like Andrea Arnold, Sofia Coppola, and Greta Gerwig always give me energy to move on in my own work. As a woman director, it is so important to have female role models. We need to see that it is possible. I believe that gives us strength to fight for the stories we want to tell.

W&H: How are you adjusting to life during the COVID-19 pandemic? Are you keeping creative, and if so, how?

YSE: I’m so tired of thinking about COVID-19. The cinemas here in Oslo and some other cities are closed. The Norwegian premiere of “Ninjababy’ is postponed to April. The way I adjust to the situation is focusing on my new projects, including a couple of feature ideas. I’m fortunate to work with Johan Fasting again on a TV series about the power struggle in the Norwegian Labour party in the ‘70s when Gro Harlem Brundtland, our first female prime minister, entered politics. I find that working together with someone makes the work more enjoyable, especially when times are confusing and rough.

Sending “Ninjababy” to Berlin and SXSW digitally is of course not how I wanted it, but digital is better than nothing — that’s my motto. And I really hope we get the opportunity to show the film to an audience in Berlin in June. SXSW I will have to visit some other time; I have several friends who have been to SXSW as musicians, and they really enjoyed it. I have worked as a music journalist for years, so a festival that combines music and film is just up my alley.

W&H: The film industry has a long history of underrepresenting people of color onscreen and behind the scenes and reinforcing — and creating — negative stereotypes. What actions do you think need to be taken to make Hollywood and/or the doc world more inclusive?

YSE: I’ve seen change in the last few years, which gives me hope. As filmmakers, we have to continue to break down stereotypes and portray characters that don’t act as expected on the basis of gender and color, but as human beings. Variation within all genders and ethnicities both behind and in front of the camera will give us a greater diversity of stories told in new and fresh ways. Change doesn’t come easy — we have to talk, think, and act on it on a daily basis.

Norway is a small social democracy; we have certain laws set by the government to enforce gender equality. For instance, companies are required to have at least 40 percent women among their company board members. We’re a small country and our film industry is dependent on state funding. This gives us the opportunity to set terms for funding, but there’s still a long way to go if you count budget, not the number of films.

I believe certain rules and regulations are important in a transition phase to create needed action towards more diverse stories and a more equal society. People sometimes need to be forced, in a gentle way, to think differently and see that they also will profit from that. How you’re gonna do that in Hollywood? I don’t know.