News

Apc Kids, part of energetic French production-distribution group Apc Studios, has sold to Canal+ France the first season of “Walter’s Christmas: Keeper of the Forest,” a Danish live action fantasy family series.

The deal kicks off sales on the series which Apc Kids is introducing to buyers this week at this Unifrance Rendez-Vous at Le Havre in Normandy, Northern France.

News of the deal comes as About Premium Content is readying a lunch presentation on Thursday at the Unifrance Rendez-Vous of live action scripted drama “The Eclipse,” an atmospheric procedural-mystery thriller set among a farming community on the windswept Aubrac plateau in France. Frank Brett (“Comme mons fils”) directs.

Produced by Cosmo Film for Denmark’s TV2, which has ordered a second season, “Walter’s Christmas,” a half-hour skein with 24 episodes in Season 1, is written by Jesper Fink, a co-scribe on “Margrete: Queen of the North,” and Thomas Porsager,...

August’s New Nordic Films, Scandinavia’s biggest second-half-of-the-year film market, will open with drama-thriller “Way Home” from Charlotte Sieiling, a concept director on the original “The Bridge” and “Borgen.”

The screening will mark the world premiere of “Way Home,” sold by LevelK and produced by Denmark’s Toolbox Film.

“This movie means a lot to me, and I really hope the Nordic audience and the world will embrace our effort to tell this father-son story in an environment so different from ours, but still part of our reality,” said Sieling.

Sieling’s latest film, “Margrete – Queen of the North,” a lavish, stately historical drama,” in Variety’s words, asked t what extent a monarch would subordinate vital interest of state to personal interest. “Way Home” poses a similar question – how far are you willing to go to save the people you love? – in an entirely different context. Christian...

Denmark-based sales outfit LevelK has boarded Charlotte Sieling’s Way Home, ahead of its presentation in the work-in-progress sessions at Goteborg Film Festival today.

Written by Danish filmmaker Sieling with Nagieb Khaja and Jesper Fink based on Khaja’s original idea, Way Home follows a man smuggled into Syria on a desperate search for his son; the man must sacrifice everything he believes in to be reunited with his child. The film is currently in post-production.

Nikolaj Lie Kaas plays the lead role, and learned Arabic for the part. Lie Kaas recently appeared in Anders Thomas Jensen’s Riders Of Justice...

Fiction feature directorial debut of Mads Hedegaard is produced by Motor.

REinvent International Sales has boarded action drama Stranger, the fiction feature directorial debut of Mads Hedegaard which is produced by Motor.

The film is set around 4,000 BC, during the transition from Hunter Stone Age to Peasant Stone Age.

The story follows a 19-year-old girl, Aathi, whose family are the first farmers to arrive in what is now Denmark; when her family is killed by a local tribe of hunter-gatherers, she and her brother are forced to live with the tribe in the vast and eerie forest and learn new traditions in order to survive.

Fast-rising Danish production powerhouse Motor, led by scribe Christian Torpe and producer Jesper Morthorst, has unveiled a splashy five-pic slate, led by the Göteborg Film Festival’s closing film “Camino” by Birgitte Stærmose and Tea Lindeburg’s pic in development “The Seal Woman,” to be pitched at the Discovery strand of Göteborg’s Nordic Film Market (Feb. 2-5).

One of the hottest new Danish directors, Netflix “Equinox” series creator Lindeburg made waves on the festival circuit with her directorial debut “As in Heaven,” which scooped a double win in San Sebastian and best-Nordic statuette in Göteborg 2021, before wooing several buyers including Juno Films in the U.S.

Her anticipated sophomore feature “The Seal Woman,” based on her original screenplay, is inspired by a Faroese legend, which has it that those who drown themselves turn into seals. And once every year, they return to shore in their human shape.

The story...

Michael Noer directs the suspense drama about a dream vacation gone wrong.

TrustNordisk has closed new deals on Michael Noer’s Birthday Girl for Germany, Austria and Switzerland (Plaion) and Benelux (Cherry Pickers).

Screen can reveal the first image from the film, which stars Trine Dyrholm and Flora Ofelia Hofmann Lindahl. The suspense drama is about a mother, her teenage daughter and her daughter’s friend celebrating a birthday on a cruise ship to the Caribbean. On the first evening, the dream vacation turns into a nightmare and the mother takes justice into her own hands.

Noer’s past films include Before The Frost,...

Michael Noer directs the suspense drama about a dream vacation gone wrong.

TrustNordisk has closed new deals on Michael Noer’s Birthday Girl for Germany, Austria and Switzerland (Plaion) and Benelux (Cherry Pickers).

Screen can reveal the first image from the film, which stars Trine Dyrholm and Flora Ofelia Hofmann Lindahl. The suspense drama is about a mother, her teenage daughter and her daughter’s friend celebrating a birthday on a cruise ship to the Caribbean. On the first evening, the dream vacation turns into a nightmare and the mother takes justice into her own hands.

Noer’s past films include Before The Frost,...

Nordish planning local release for March 2023.

TrustNordisk has boarded international sales for Birthday Girl (working title), a cruise ship-set suspense drama from Danish director Michael Noer starring Trine Dyrholm.

The cast also includes Flora Ofelia Hofmann Lindahl (As in Heaven) and Herman Tømmeraas (Shame).

René Ezra (Queen Of Hearts) and Matilda Appelin (A Perfectly Normal Family) produce for Nordisk Film Production. The film wrapped shooting on April 22 and is being readied for a March 2023 launch through Nordisk.

Birthday Girl is about a mother, her teenage daughter and her daughter’s friend celebrating a birthday on a cruise ship to the Caribbean.

Trine Dyrholm on Margrete in Charlotte Sieling’s Margrete: Queen Of The North (Margrete Den Første) “When the costumes and all the hair pieces came along, I think we fulfilled the character together with Charlotte.” Photo: Samuel Goldwyn Films

Margrete: Queen Of The North (Margrete Den Første) director Charlotte Sieling and her star Trine Dyrholm discuss with me the costumes by Manon Rasmussen, the hair and makeup by AnnaCarin Lock, the choreography by Niclas Bendixen, the production design of Søren Schwartzberg, horseback riding, the authority and foresight of Margrete, and Margrethe II attending the premiere.

Charlotte Sieling with Trine Dyrholm and Anne-Katrin Titze on her design team: “What was amazing about it, was that before Trine came in and gave life to all this, was that it was so creative.”

Charlotte Sieling’s bold and beautiful Margrete: Queen Of The North, co-written with Jesper Fink and Maya Ilsøe and shot by Rasmus Videbæk,...

Samuel Goldwyn Films has acquired U.S. rights to the anticipated Danish epic period drama “Margrete-Queen of the North,” helmed by Charlotte Sieling. The upscale feature, produced by Birgitte Skov and Lars Bredo Rahbek for Scandinavian major Sf Studios, is screening at this week’s Norwegian International Film Festival in Haugesund (Aug.21-27).

The deal was negotiated by REinvent International Sales, exclusive sales agent of Sf Studios’ feature film slate.

“Samuel Goldwyn Films is a great partner for us, and we are confident that they will release the film with success,” said REinvent’s sales and marketing director Helene Aurø. “They have been keen on the film from the very beginning, and we are certain they will do a great job releasing this epic film in the US.”

An earlier sales deal was closed with Splendid Film for Germany.

Toplining Trine Dyrholm, “Margrete-Queen of the North” is a biopic about...

REinvent International Sales has closed Germany on Charlotte Sieling’s anticipated epic period drama, “Margrete – Queen of the North,” starring Trine Dyrholm (“The Commune”), licensing the film to Splendid Film.

The film stars Dyrholm, the award-winning actress of Thomas Vinterberg’s “The Commune” and May el-Toukhy’s “Queen of Hearts,” as Margrete I of Denmark, who is considered the most powerful ruler in Scandinavian history, as she gathered Denmark, Norway and Sweden into a peaceful union.

“Margrete· brings a fascinating “royal” and internationally hardly-known story to the screen, in an equally fascinating historical setting,” said

Rainer Flaskamp, head of acquisitions and sales at Splendid Film.

The historical drama has “a deep emotional angle and a lot of female power and involving some of Scandinavia’s best talent,” he added.

Helene Aurø, sales and marketing director at REinvent said that the company was “thrilled that Splendid has come onboard at an...

Record numbers of industry attendees from 46 countries virtually attended Nordic Film Market at TV Drama Vision.

Goteborg’s industry activities attracted a record 734 delegates for the Nordic Film Market and 566 for TV Drama Vision, from across 46 countries. Like the festival, the industry programme was held online for the first time this year due to the pandemic.

One hot film project being pitched at script stage was Stranger, which unites Danish production company Motor with Poland’s Opus Film (Ida). Mads Hedegaard will make his fictional feature directorial debut with the film, which he co-writes with Jesper Fink (Margrete-Queen Of The...

Danish helmer Janus Metz’s next feature project after Amazon Studios’ “All the Old Knives,” starring Laurence Fischburne and Chris Pine, will be the Danish drama “Bastard Love,” produced by Jesper Morthorst and Lise Orheim Stender for Motor.

“Bastard Love” will be Metz’s sophomore Scandinavian feature film after the multi-awarded ”Borg vs. McEnroe.” The project is co-penned by Metz and Danish author Kamilla Hega Holst from her acclaimed novel “På Træk,” winner of the 2015 Blixen Literary Award.

The intense psychological drama centers on a woman in her late thirties who leaves her failed marriage, ex-husband and two kids, and ends up in Pattaya, Thailand, where her retired grandfather is living with a Thai woman. There, she starts a relationship with a trans prostitute and throws herself into the dark underbelly of the city, where anything is possible, including redefining herself.

The Thai setting is familiar territory for Holst whose grandfather lived in Pattaya,...

Poland’s Opus Film and Scandinavian distributor Scanbox are teaming with fast-rising Danish production house Motor on Mads Hedegaard’s directorial debut “Stranger,” co-penned with Jesper Fink. Tagged by Motor as “‘Apocalypto’ meets ‘The Revenant,’” “Stranger” will be pitched virtually on Feb. 5 by Hedegaard and producer Andreas Hjortdal, at the Discovery section of the Göteborg Film Festival’s Nordic Film Market industry showcase.

The film goes back to pre-historic times, 6,000 years ago, when migrant farmers virtually replaced the hunter-gatherer populations of northern Europe. When 16-year old Aathi and her family -the first farmers ever – arrive from the south in the country now known as Denmark, all except Aathi and her younger brother are killed by local hunters. To survive, the two youngsters are forced to live with the hunters’ tribe in the eerie forest and integrate. But when Aathi becomes pregnant and the child is forcefully adopted by the tribe,...

Nordic production and distribution powerhouse Sf Studios and sales agency REinvent International Sales have revealed a sneak peek of Charlotte Sieling’s epic period drama “Margrete – Queen of the North,” starring Trine Dyrholm, a Berlin Silver Bear winner for best actress with Thomas Vinterberg’s “The Commune.”

Dyrholm, whose credits also include Susanne Bier’s Oscar winner “In a Better World” and May el-Toukhy’s “Queen of Hearts,” toplines as Margrete the First, who is considered the most powerful ruler in Scandinavian history, as she gathered Denmark, Norway and Sweden into a peace-oriented union.

With a big budget by Scandinavian standards, “Margrete – Queen of the North” marks the first biopic movie about Margrete the First, a woman ahead of her time who sacrificed herself completely for her vision and for her countries. “Margrete -Queen of the North” is one of the titles set to be presented in the work in...

The big-budget production will start shooting on March 2, with a premiere planned for spring 2021.

Award-winning Queen Of Hearts actress Trine Dyrholm will play a different kind of queen in Charlotte Sieling’s historical epic Margrete – Queen Of The North.

The Danish actress plays Margrete I, who gathered Denmark, Norway and Sweden into a peace-oriented union. In 1402, a conspiracy threatens to ruin her.

The film’s budget is larger than typical Scandinavian productions, at $9.4m (8.7m Euros).

The cast is a who’s who of pan-Scandinavian talent, also including Søren Malling (The Killing), Morten Hee Andersen (Ride Upon The Storm), Jakob Oftebro...

’Margrete’ will tell story of influential queen at start of 15th century.

Renowned Danish film and TV director Charlotte Sieling, whose credits include 2017 feature The Man, as well as TV series Borgen, The Bridge, Homeland and The Americans is planning her largest-budget film to date, the $8m period drama Margrete.

Margrete is based on “the true story of the strongest, most fascinating but also most under-exposed ruler that Scandinavia has ever seen,” Sieling revealed.

At a time when most women were second-class citizens, in 1397 Margrete The First was the first person to merge Denmark, Norway and Sweden into one sovereign...

Be truthful, be human, get naked: 1995's groundbreaking manifesto didn't just shake up cinema. It inspired Danes to make the world's best TV, buildings and food (if you like fried mould with your grasshopper)

• Interview with Thomas Vinterberg

'Il est merde!" yelled Mark Kermode, from the back of the cinema. "It is shit!" The year was 1998 and Kermode – then Radio 1's film critic – had not taken kindly to that year's Cannes film festival. Specifically, he was narked by a new work by Lars von Trier called The Idiots, a film shot with shaky cameras that centred on an orgy-loving group of rebels who, in public, acted like people with mental disabilities.

The Idiots was one of the first films to emerge from the Dogme 95 movement. Three years earlier, its ringleader Von Trier had stood up at a Paris conference and showered its audience with pamphlets. These were the bigwigs of...