Lonely, But Not Alone: Stefan Pflug’s Portrait of Gen Z Vulnerability

In ‘The Lonely Generation’, Danish director Stefan Pflug trades linear storytelling for emotional truth, creating a stirring portrait of modern youth for telecom brand Call Me, and lifting the lid on a problem not often spoken about – the loneliness crisis among young people.

Produced by Holy Ravioli and developed with Brandhouse, the film explores loneliness not through statistics or speeches, but through glances, silences, and fleeting moments of early adulthood. It does that while reminding all of us about a time when we needed connection more than anything. Shot on the Alexa 35 by acclaimed cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grøvlen (Another Round), it’s raw, warm, and powerfully human.

Built around a fragmentary script and anchored in a fictional graduation speech (which will inevitably create a painful lump in your throat), the film demanded a production approach that prioritised atmosphere over structure. “You can’t fully predict the outcome – you have to be willing to go where the cast and setting take you,” says the team at Holy Ravioli. That meant embracing imperfection, working at pace, and trusting in the unscripted energy of its young cast.

The daytime party scenes turned into real celebrations on set, and the edit was shaped by instinct rather than formula – but these are moments you will easily get on a shoot where everybody is dedicated to the project. Because of this devotion, ‘The Lonely Generation’ managed to capture a generation in quiet crisis, without ever leaning on cliché.

Today, LBB’s Zoe Antonov speaks to Holy Ravioli and Stefan to find out how trust and craft intertwined on the shoot, and the openness to unpredictability allowed the teams to build something both socially resonant and cinematically intimate.

LBB> What were some of the biggest production challenges in working with a fragmentary script structure and how did you manage continuity during the shoot?

Holy Ravioli> Well, the biggest challenge is meeting expectations around the table. With fragmentary scripts you can’t fully predict the outcome and you have to be willing to go where the setting and cast takes you, staying open to new possibilities as you go along. And while that is super fun and creatively satisfying for us, it is a challenging process for the client. On this production, we had a super brave client and an agency, who really appreciated Stefan's explorative approach to the project. That’s what it takes, support and trust.

LBB> How did you approach casting for a film that relied so heavily on natural, unscripted performances from young people?

Holy Ravioli> This is one of [director] Stefan's strong traits, casting. He had a very clear vision for how to achieve what we did. So even in the early stages of pitching, we had reached out to Stefan's two casting directors, Astrid Faarup and Ditte Kiel.

Aside from our incredible lead, Jacob Spang Olsen, Stefan wanted to cast a larger group of students that would follow us throughout our shooting days. We really emphasized making them a part of the production, took their input on scenes and had fun with them. It feels real, because it was – and the parties in particular were a blast.

LBB> With so many moments captured in a documentary-like style, how did you balance control and spontaneity on set?

Holy Ravioli> In some scenes, our approach favored control and in others we favored spontaneity. Obviously the core scene – the speech in the graduation hall – has a large light setup and some of the party sequences were lit 360, but with the pace at which we were working, it was really about being light on our feet and having a crew committed to a dynamic workflow. Furthermore, we knew that we would never linger too long in any one shot, so it was never really about ‘beauty lighting’ or perfecting character light. The cast and moment by far outweighed the aesthetics. And for exterior scenes we didn’t light at all.

LBB> Can you talk us through the collaboration with cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grøvlen – what was the process behind defining the visual tone?

HOLY> Sturla and Stefan are not common collaborators, this is actually their first encounter, but it will not be the last. On paper it just looked like a great match, so we set up a chemistry meet for them, which went well. It was evident that they shared a vision for the campaign going for a natural unforced look and feel, allowing for imperfection. Honestly, that part of the process was simple.

LBB> What informed the choice to shoot on Alexa 35 with Zeiss Super Speed lenses, and how did those tools help you achieve the emotional warmth and texture of the final film?

Stefan> I love everything about filmmaking and for years, I used to spend a great amount of time getting to know all the different cinematic tools, out of passion and interest.

Looking back, I feel like that sometimes led to overdoing the craft and hereby creating a distance between the audience and the emotion.

I want audiences to lose themselves in the story, not remind them that it is fabricated. So I started to back-track, cutting away layers of complexity such as elaborate lighting, fancy transitions etc in favor of authenticity. This process trickles down to choice of camera house and lenses too. The Alexa 35 with Zeiss Super Speeds is just the perfect combination. Organic, real. Luckily, Sturla agreed.

LBB> Were there any specific considerations in terms of location scouting or art direction that helped support the realism and mood of the campaign?

HOLY> Yes, many. We shot 18 hours of footage in three days, so we had a lot of ground to cover and had to minimize company moves. So, in short – big locations.

We were aiming for un-presumptuous spaces – warm, authentic and with a clear identity. As for the high school, we spent a lot of time scouting and just fell in love with this particular space. The posters and homemade collages in the classrooms, the mid century modern art, the warmth of the wall colors and wood panelling. Even the chairs in the graduation hall. It was just perfect.

The spaces we worked with had a lot to offer. This being said, we had a large and highly effective art department lead by Camilla Wejhe, a long time collaborator of Stefan. A huge shout out to her and the team.

LBB> What was the timeline like from development through to delivery, and how did you adapt production planning for a film with such an emotionally fluid narrative?

HOLY> We had seven weeks from when the job was awarded to the on-air date, which was set in stone, as Call Me had bought two minutes of airtime just prior to the X-Factor finale, which accumulates one of the largest television audiences in the country.

We set a strong production team lead by Karl Osbæck Adelkilde and just started scouting locations and casting simultaneously. The shoot was planned for three days and although it was hectic and packed, all went well.

After the first three days of editing, a notion had started to grow – that the best cut would in fact be two and a half minutes long. We presented the idea to the client and they ended up adding the extra 30 seconds to an already substantial media investment. For us, this was such a major show of trust, since we had not yet shared a cut.

LBB> How did you work with director Stefan Pflug to preserve the emotional integrity of the scenes while still meeting the campaign’s commercial goals?

HOLY> It’s obviously a balancing act. We had continuous conversations with Call Me about how subtle and poetic the scene depictions could be and we are super happy with where we landed. Stefan was very clear on his ambition for the campaign. He wanted to steer clear of the clichés that surround the subject of youth loneliness. He argued that we should experience the emotion in small, authentic moments and glimpses, because the speech is so explicit although neatly put together.

He didn’t want this generation of young people to appear weak and isolated, because they are not. In fact, they are strong, inclusive and have a real ambition to lift each other – if only they knew about the inner struggles someone close to them was facing. The issue is that they hide away these emotions of loneliness from even their closest friends and family.

LBB> With so much of the film relying on atmosphere and pacing, how involved was the post-production process in shaping the final emotional arc?

Stefan> The graduation speech informs the emotional arc to a large extent and I had a lot of ideas about how the cut would come together. You’d be surprised how close the finale cut is to the treatment script.

The first part of the editing process was really trying to actualize the preconceived notions about the cut – then we started to play with the footage. For these types of projects, I worked with an amazing editor, Rasmus Nyholm Schmidt, who has a strong background in documentary films as well as being a great commercial editor. Rasmus always challenges me as well as the footage, and where I would tend to cast away ‘imperfect’ footage, he has this incredible tendency of integrating in a way that lifts the emotion. He makes it feel deliberate yet unexpected.

LBB> How did Holy Ravioli facilitate the collaboration between Brandhouse, Call Me, and Ventilen to ensure that the campaign stayed true to its social impact goals?

Holy> It’s all a matter of trust and openness to the pivotal nature of the process. From all sides. We’d like to claim that we did something completely extraordinary, but we mainly focused on producing the best possible film while keeping everyone in the loop. And the heavy lifting of the broader collaboration was primarily handled by Trine Qvistgaard, Line Kamstrup and all the good people at Brandhouse.

With regards to the social impact goals, it's important to note that the campaign is part of a larger strategic collaboration between Call Me and Ventilen, a youth organization that works to reduce loneliness. So the film served primarily as a medium to ensure engagement and reduce stigma. As the campaign has just gone live, we don’t have the results yet, but we expect it to perform well.

LBB> Looking back at the shoot, was there a specific moment on set that encapsulated what The Lonely Generation was all about from a production standpoint?

Stefan> For me there was a particular moment that has stuck with me. So, we had quite a few party scenes and I was worried how fast we would be able to achieve an authentic atmosphere – in the middle of the day, sober, amongst strangers.

We even booked a few young dancers to make sure we could get the floor going. Prior to this particular scene, we had a lunch break and I needed to stop by our stylist, who was facing quite a massive job. I remember being greeted by the smell of heavy colognes, hairspray and hip-hop music. The atmosphere was incredible, it felt exactly like a pre-party. I realized at that point that we had managed to create a set that was bigger than the film. They were not going to shoot a scene, they were in fact going to a party. And the moment we turned on the music, the space went nuts.