Nicolas Winding Refn, Esben Weile Kjær & Elias Rønnenfelt on creativity.

Nørrebro Teater presents a conversation between film director Nicolas Winding Refn, visual artist Esben Weile Kjær and musician Elias Rønnenfelt about creativity.

Magic, sci-fi, romance, pop and punk come together as the three Danish creatives explore their different artistic expressions and practices, where they intersect, and what drives them.

Creativity is put into perspective as journalist and radio host Maya Tekeli asks whether it is possible to embrace the commercial without losing your authenticity and creative core? And how creativity as a primal force can manifest itself differently depending on whether it is cultivated in the abstract or the conventional?

The conversation is in Danish.

Nicolas Winding Refn is a Danish film director, screenwriter and producer based in Copenhagen. He began his career with the iconic Pusher trilogy (1996-2005) and has since created a series of films, including Bronson (2008), starring Tom Hardy, Valhalla Rising (2009), and Drive (2011), starring acclaimed American actor Ryan Gosling. For Drive, he received the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival. He continued his collaboration with Ryan Gosling on Only God Forgives (2013) and later directed the psychological thriller The Neon Demon (2016). In recent years, Refn has moved into television, creating Too Old to Die Young (2019) for Amazon and Copenhagen Cowboy (2023) for Netflix. Today, he is recognised as one of Denmark’s most original, influential and acclaimed filmmakers.
The science-fiction thriller Her Private Hell (2026) is Nicolas Winding Refn’s eleventh feature film and will premiere in Danish cinemas on 5 October 2026.

Elias Rønnenfelt is a Danish musician, solo artist under his own name, and lead singer of the critically acclaimed Danish punk band Iceage. Rønnenfelt lives and works in Copenhagen. He has released several albums under his own name, moving beyond punk and embracing pop. Rønnenfelt made his solo debut with the album Heavy Glory in 2024, followed by Speak Daggers (2025), which features contributions from the Jamaican group The Congos as well as Danish artists Erika de Casier and Fine. His latest EP, Lucre (2025), was created in collaboration with British musician Dean Blunt and British producer Vegyn.
Iceage have released eight albums, the latest, For Love of Grace & the Hereafter, coming out in May 2026. Both Rønnenfelt and Iceage have performed around the world, including at Roskilde Festival, Syd for Solen and Øya Festival this summer.

Esben Weile Kjær is a Danish visual artist who graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 2022 and has also studied at the Städelschule in Frankfurt. He lives and works in Copenhagen.
His practice spans performance, sculpture and installation, often drawing on visual languages from youth culture, nightlife, pop culture and the entertainment industry. Through his work, he explores themes including desire, collective rituals, identity and contemporary notions of freedom. A recurring feature of his practice is the movement between performance and the sculptural object.
Weile Kjær’s works and performances have been presented internationally at venues including Centre Pompidou in Paris (2022), Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin (2024), MMCA in Seoul (2024), ARKEN museum for samtidskunst in Ishøj (2023), and Copenhagen Contemporary in Copenhagen (2020).

Maya Tekeli is a Danish journalist, radio host and freelance writer. She works for The New York Times and writes for several publications including ELLE. She previously worked for Radio24syv, Frihedsbrevet and Jyllands-Posten.