Actualités

In the catchy Scandi-pop song that plays over the end credits of Sauna, Anton Falck’s “All the Pretty Boys,” the singer fantasizes about being prince charming in a world of beautiful men, immune from rejection. From the outside, that dream might seem attainable for Johan, a recent transplant to Copenhagen who has come to the big city to live more openly as a young gay man. His job working the reception desk at Adonis, a cruisy male-only bathhouse, surrounds him with the sounds, the smells and the sweaty physical sensations of sex and desire.

Even the more squalid side of Johan’s work — mopping sticky floors and wiping down vinyl mattresses and glory holes between shifts, when the dim lighting of operating hours makes way for fluorescents — seems tolerable when weighed against the instant gratification of anonymous backroom hookups, one-night stands and hedonistic queer clubbing. Those pleasures presumably were...

Mathias Broe’s ‘Sauna’ is a groundbreaking film for Denmark, featuring its first trans lead, Nina Rask, in the role of William. Broe explained, “It’s the first time we have a trans person in a leading role in a feature film in Denmark. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have made this movie.”

The film, which features both professional and non-professional queer actors, aims to authentically depict queer stories. Broe emphasized, “We have to create a real story with real human beings,” and the film explores themes of love and conflict within the queer community.

Rask stars alongside Magnus Juhl Andersen, who plays Johan, a receptionist at a gay sauna. Broe noted that creating a story about trans men in such spaces was important: “A sauna is a good place to explore such conflict because for a trans guy, it’s hard to access these spaces.” The movie also tackles the...

Mathias Broe’s “Sauna,” selected for World Cinema Dramatic Competition at Sundance, is making history.

“It’s the first time we have a trans person in a leading role in a feature film in Denmark. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have made this movie,” the debuting director tells Variety.

“We don’t have many trans actors in Denmark and in order to carry an entire feature, you need experience. That’s why we chose Nina Rask, who is trans-masc and a big comedian and actor,” Broe tells Variety.

“We ended up using non-professional queer actors in minor roles and did a lot of research within the community to make it as authentic as possible. Creating queer stories can be very tricky, you want to do everything right, but we had to say: ‘We’re not going to make a good film if we do everything ‘right.’ We have to create a...

Nordic sales powerhouse TrustNordisk is launching international sales on queer sex drama Sauna, which has begun filming this month in Denmark.

Set in the Copenhagen queer community, the film follows Johan, a young man who believes he can find community working in a gay sauna, and who then falls in love when he meets transgender William.

It is the feature debut for Danish director Mathias Broe, who wrote the film with William Lippert based on Mads Ananda Lodahl’s novel of the same name.

Mads-August Hertz is producing for Nordisk Film Production with support from the New Danish Screen at the Danish Film Institute,...