News

Copenhagen-based TrustNordisk has inked multiple deals on the Danish thriller “Boundless,” based on Jussi Adler-Olsen’s “Department Q” novel, which is currently dominating the Danish box office.

Ahead of the pic’s market screening Feb 17 at the Berlin European Film Market, the title, helmed by Ole Christian Madsen has sold to Wild Bunch Distribution for France, Vértigo Films for Spain, Frenetic Films for Switzerland, Film Europe Slovakia for Czech Republic, Vertigo Media for Hungary and Contents Panda for Korea.

“Boundless” is the second of six Department Q thrillers produced by Nordisk Film Production Denmark, after “The Marco Effect,” headlining Ulrich Thomsen as maverick detective Carl Mørck.

“It’s such a pleasure to handle this amazing ‘Department Q’ saga for Vértigo, and “Boundless” confirms again the power and seduction of this perfect thriller,” said Spanish distributor Andres Martín from Vértigo Films, who also acquired “The Marco Effect” from TrustNordisk.

In “Boundless,...

Exclusive: Paprika Steen (Okay), Isabella Crovetti (Colony), Glo Tavarez (Late Night), Jade Payton (Dynasty) and Connor Falk (Diary of a Future President) are set as series regulars opposite Lena Headey in Showtime dramedy pilot Rita, based on Christian Torpe’s award-winning Danish series. Torpe will pen the pilot and serve as showrunner. Rita is a co-production of Showtime and Platform One Media.

In Rita, Headey will play the title character, a headstrong, unconventional teacher and single mother who takes on every kind of authority – as well as her family – in a messy and unfiltered way. Josh Hutcherson, Curtiss Cook, Darren Pettie and Bryce Gangel also star.

Steen will play Ellen, a guidance counselor who runs the school with weaponized empathy. Crovetti will portray Rose, an overly ambitious student whom Rita is constantly at odds with. Tavarez will play Connie, a new and overly enthusiastic teacher at Rita’s school. Payton is Molly,...

Produced by Danish outfit Zentropa, shooting on the €5.3m feature began this week.

Mads Mikkelsen is to star in Riders Of Justice, a dark comedy written and directed by Anders Thomas Jensen, which will be sold internationally by TrustNordisk.

Jensen is perhaps best known as the screenwriter behind Susanne Bier’s Oscar-winning In a Better World but has directed features including Men & Chicken, Adam’s Apples, The Green Butchers and Flickering Lights – all of which starred Mikkelsen.

The cast of his latest feature also includes Nikolaj Lie Kaas, star of the Department Q franchise, Lars Brygmann (That Time Of Year...

Thrilling news: the great Mads Mikkelsen is reuniting with the great Anders Thomas Jensen for a new, dark comedy. Titled Riders of Justice, the film "follows Markus," according to Deadline, " who has to go home to his teenage daughter, Mathilde, when his wife dies in a tragic train accident. It seems like an accident, until a mathematics geek, who was also a fellow passenger on the train, and his two colleagues show up saying they are convinced someone is behind it." Deadline reports that filming began yesterday, and also names the co-stars including "Nikolaj Lie Kaas (The Department Q film series), Lars Brygman (That Time Of Year), Nicolas Bro (Nymphomaniac), Gustav Lindh (Queen Of Hearts), Roland Møller (Papillion), and Andrea Heick Gadeberg (Daniel)." Nicolas...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Mads Mikkelsen is leading the cast of Scandi pic Riders Of Justice, the latest feature from Oscar-Winning Danish filmmaker Anders Thomas Jensen.

Jensen is a noted screenwriter with more than 30 feature credits; he has collaborated with the likes of Susanne Bier and Lone Scherfig. As a director, he helmed a trio of Oscar nominated shorts in 1997, 1998, and 1999, winning for the latter. His features, characterized by their dark humor, include 2005 comedy-drama Adam’s Apples, 2003 pic The Green Butchers, and 2015 film Men & Chicken, all of which also starred Mikkelsen and screened at Toronto.

His latest film follows Markus, who has to go home to his teenage daughter, Mathilde, when his wife dies in a tragic train accident. It seems like an accident until a mathematics geek, who was also a fellow passenger on the train, and his two colleagues show up saying they are convinced someone is behind it.

Mark Harrison Dec 23, 2019

From Christmas Eve capers to Michael Shannon pretending to be Bigfoot, here are some more unusual Christmas movie picks for this season

Despite only being in season for about a month of the year, Christmas movies are a booming business. Outside of big-screen offerings like Paul Feig’s Last Christmas and a new version of Black Christmas, the Hallmark Channel has produced a whopping 40 new festive movies for 2019 and Netflix has turned out a range of original films too.

Few of the new films produced each year will join the annual rotation of classics like The Muppet Christmas Carol and It’s A Wonderful Life, but not everyone wants to watch the same films once a year every year. If you’re looking for something festive that you might have missed, or you just haven’t seen in a long time, or even something that isn’t about either Santa or Scrooge,...

The film about the 2015 Copenhagen terrororist attack is in post.

Screen can exclusively reveal the first-look image from Ole Christian Madsen’s forthcoming feature The Day We Died, now in post.

The story follows four people connected to the February 2015 terrorist attacks in Copenhagen: two victims, the radicalised homegrown terrorist and the Swat team leader who shot the terrorist. The latter is played by Game Of Thrones star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.

This image shows Lars Brygmann, whose credits include Borgen and That Time Of Year, playing Finn Nørgaard, the Danish filmmaker killed in the attacks.

“I realised if I could have...

Scandinavian studio Nordisk Film has attached May el-Toukhy (Queen Of Hearts) to direct The Lioness, the upcoming biopic of Out Of Africa author Karen Blixen, a.k.a. Isak Dinesen.

Script comes from Jakob Weis (That Time Of Year) in collaboration with El-Toukhy and is based on author and historian Tom Buk-Swienty’s recently published biography about Blixen’s life as a coffee farmer in Kenya from 1914-31. Pic is being produced by Mikael Rieks (Land Of Mine) for Nordisk Film with an expected 2022 launch.

El-Toukhy’s international breakthrough came earlier this year with Sundance, Rotterdam and Gothenburg title Queen Of Hearts, which will be released later this year in U.S. by Breaking Glass Pictures. Trine Dyrholm stars in the provocative film about a woman who jeopardizes her career and family when she seduces her teenage stepson.

El-Toukhy said, “I have always regarded Karen Blixen as a victim. As...

Karen Blixen is going back to Africa.

Scandinavian film studio Nordisk Film has greenlit The Lionees, a biopic on the late Danish writer, best known for her 1937 autobiography Out of Africa, which was turned into the 1985 Oscar-winning film starring Meryl Streep as Blixen alongside Robert Redford.

May el-Toukhy, director of Sundance drama Queen of Hearts, is attached to direct. She will co-write the script with Jakob Weis (That Time of Year) based on The Lioness, a  new biography on Blixen by acclaimed author and historian Tom Buk-Swienty. The book, and film, will focus on Blixen's live as a coffee farmer in ...

Karen Blixen is going back to Africa.

Scandinavian film studio Nordisk Film has greenlit The Lionees, a biopic on the late Danish writer, best known for her 1937 autobiography Out of Africa, which was turned into the 1985 Oscar-winning film starring Meryl Streep as Blixen alongside Robert Redford.

May el-Toukhy, director of Sundance drama Queen of Hearts, is attached to direct. She will co-write the script with Jakob Weis (That Time of Year) based on The Lioness, a  new biography on Blixen by acclaimed author and historian Tom Buk-Swienty. The book, and film, will focus on Blixen's live as a coffee farmer in ...

Goteborg, Sweden — Christoffer Boe and a stellar Danish cast are on board Miso Film’s series “Face to Face,” produced for the Nent Group.

The show, currently in production, will be sold worldwide by Fremantle. This is Boe’s second TV series produced by Miso Film’s Peter Bose and Jonas Allen after “Warrior,” and his first TV drama for Nent Group’s Nordic streaming service Viaplay.

The Danish director, who struck gold in 2018 with the local pic “The Purity of Vengeance,” last year’s biggest B.O hit in Denmark, and the drama series “Warrior” – delves deeper into crime with “Face to Face” (“Førhøret” in Danish), co-penned by Jakob Weis (“That Time of Year”).

An exceptional all-star cast have joined the director: Ulrich Thomsen (“The New Pope”), Lars Mikkelsen (“Ride Upon the Storm”), Nikolaj Lie Kaas (“Britannia”), Trine Dyrholm (“The Legacy”), David Dencik (“MacMafia”), Lars Ranthe (“Pros and Cons...

Last year, Danish, Icelandic and Norwegian films triumphed with local audiences, fueling general attendance. In Sweden, local fare also upped their share of an overall sluggish market, while Finland had a quieter year after a record 2017. Everywhere “Mamma Mia-Here We Go Again” was number one except in Denmark where local films were back in favor.

Denmark

After two years of slide, Danish films were back in favour with local crowds, and boosted general admissions to 13 million (up 4.6%) and box office to Dkk 1.1 billion ($173 million). With 3.8 million admissions (up 34.2% from 2017), representing Dkk 290.9 million ($44.5 million) in revenue, local titles claimed a 29% market share, the success target just set in new Danish Film Agreement for 2019-2023.

“In a country like Denmark with a relatively small feature film production [21 films in 2018], the box office will inevitably vary from one year to the next,” commented Claus Ladegaard, CEO at the Danish Film Institute. The latter welcomed the...

Mikael Rieks will produce both projects.

Nordisk Film has acquired the screen rights to two new books from historian Tom Buk-Swienty about author Karen Blixen (aka Isak Dinesen) and scientist Niels Bohr.

Mikael Rieks of Nordisk, whose credits include Oscar-nominated Land Of Mine as well as current box-office hit That Time Of Year, will produce both projects.

Out of Africa author Blixen will be the subject of The Lioness, a feature film and TV mini-series which will cover her life as an upperclass Danish woman who became a coffee farmer in colonial Kenya from 1914-1931. Jakob Weis (That Time of Year...

Nordisk Film is developing “The Lioness,” an international feature film and a miniseries about Karen Blixen, the Danish author best known for her autobiographical novel “Out of Africa,” which Sydney Pollack adapted into the 1985 pic starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford.

The film and miniseries will be written by Jakob Weis (“That Time of Year”), based on two upcoming books by acclaimed author and historian Tom Buk-Swienty, and will chronicle Blixen’s life as a coffee farmer in Kenya from 1914 to 1931.

Set in the early 20th century, Buk-Swienty’s biography tells the story of a young upper-class Danish woman who sought independence from her overbearing Victorian family and hoped to make it as a coffee farmer in colonial Kenya.

“After 17 years of hardship, marked by World War I, poor harvests due to various natural disasters, the onset of the Great Depression and her tragic love affair with Denys Finch Hatton,...

Scandinavian powerhouse Nordisk Film is lining up English-language biopics of Danish icons Karen Blixen, writer of acclaimed memoir Out Of Africa, and physicist Niels Bohr.

Nordisk has acquired rights to author and historian Tom Buk-Swienty’s upcoming books about the pair. Currently in development are The Lioness, a feature film and mini-series about author Blixen (aka Isak Dinesen) and her life as a coffee farmer in Kenya from 1914-31, and feature The Great Dane, about scientist Bohr, one of the fathers of the nuclear bomb.

“This deal is the culmination of a year-long search for the right collaboration to turn the lives of two of the greatest Danes who ever lived into film”, said Mikael Rieks, producer of Oscar-nominated Danish drama Land Of Mine. Rieks will produce both films with Jakob Weis (That Time Of Year) penning both scripts. The Lioness is due to be adapted first.

Blixen, born in...

After a relatively fallow 2017, European sales companies at Busan’s Asian Film Market, which runs Oct. 6-9, appear to be headed back to the halcyon days of 2016, despite the damp weather conditions. Statistics from European Film Promotion (Efp), a constant presence at the market since 2006 via their Europe Umbrella business hub for European sales companies, tell the tale.Europeans Get Back to Business at the Asian Film Market

At the 2016 market, 27 European companies represented 105 films, of which 48, or 45.71%, were sold across Asia. These included “Night of a 1000 Hours,” sold by Germany’s Picture Tree Intl., and “Porto,” sold by Poland’s New Europe Film Sales. In 2017, 30 companies represented 119 films, of which 47, or 39.49%, were sold to Asian territories, including “Bpm (Beats Per Minute),” sold by France’s Playtime, and “The Insult,” repped by fellow French outfit Alpha Violet.

In 2018, reflecting what has been a strong year for European cinema, there are...

“That Time of Year” refers to Christmas, and it is a given in Danish thesp Paprika Steen’s third directorial feature that the togetherness holidays force on us are a holy pain in the arse, with or without Baby Jesus. That “Families are the best… and the worst!” stance feels more than a bit pat in a dramedy whose crises and insufferable behaviors have a well-made-play calculation even as they’re meant to capture emotional messiness. Nevertheless, this mix of sour comedy and default sentimentality should have some appeal in Scandinavia, where the actors’ familiarity will be a lure. Farther afield, it may stir lesser interest as a foreign-language piece too mainstream, and not original or subtle enough, for art-house audiences.

The theatrical air shouldn’t surprise, as this is the first original feature screenplay for well-established Danish playwright Jakob Weis. Sooner or later, “That Time of Year” will probably...