News

Danish director Mads Hedegaard had to invent new languages for the Stone Age epic “Stranger.”

“I have a background in documentaries [‘Cannon Arm and the Arcade Quest’], so it had to feel real to the audience. I was like: ‘We’re not going to buy it if the actors talk in Danish or English,’” he explained to Variety before the film’s world-premiere at Sweden’s Goteborg, where it is the festival’s closing film.

“There was a guy I knew; he has a PhD in Proto-Indo-European languages. But even those are 2,000 years older than those in our story. We asked him: ‘Can you come up with new ones?’ Tobias [Søborg] took an old Siberian tribal language and merged it with ancient Mayan. Then he did the same thing again, this time using dialects from the area around Turkey. We had a dictionary and a set of grammatical rules. Poor actors. They had to learn so much more than just their lines,...

Highly active Copenhagen-based sales outfit REinvent has acquired rights to the Danish pic “Rome,” officially selected as the Göteborg Film Festival’s closing movie.

The life-affirming romantic drama marks the sophomore feature from established Danish choreographer Niclas Bendixen, behind Mads Mikkelsen’s famous dance scene in the Oscar-winning “Another Round.” Toplining the cast are Rolf Lassgård (“A Man Called Ove”), Bodil Jørgensen (“The Kingdom”), and Kristian Halken (“A Perfectly Normal Family”), who shares the writing credits with Bendixen and Christian Torpe (“Silent Heart”).

“‘Rome’ stands out as a heart-warming film which makes you think about life, love and values. We are proud to represent and showcase ‘Rome’ to an international audience in Göteborg. I am confident that the film will find a home in the hearts of distributors in countries worldwide,” said Helene Aurø, REinvent’s sales and marketing director.

Based on Halken’s idea, the pic turns on Gerda...

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...

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,...

Projects include period drama ‘The Emigrants’ and ‘Margrete – Queen Of The North’, starring Trine Dyrholm.

Goteborg’s Nordic Film Market has revealed the 13 Nordic films that will be presented as works in progress at its online market.

They include two big-budget historical epics, Charlotte Sieling’s Margrete – Queen Of The North, starring Trine Dyrholm as a powerful ruler in the early 15th century; and Erik Poppe’s The Emigrants, about Swedes moving to America in the 19th century.

Scroll down for full list

Further features set to be previewed include Bille August’s drama The Pact, about Karen Blixen’s...

Danish director Thomas Vinterberg’s Oscar-nominated The Hunt (Jagten) won seven awards at the Danish Academy Awards - where Gravity picked up Best Us Feature.Scroll down for full list of winners

The Hunt, which has made the shortlist for the Best Foreign-Language Film at this year’s Oscars, was nominated in 14 categories at the Roberts - the annual awards of the Danish Film Academy.

Last night’s ceremony marked the 30th time the Danish national film prize was awarded at a gala in Copenhagen’s Tivoli Hotel & Congress Centre.

Having already collected 18 international prizes, including three at Cannes and a European Film Award, The Hunt won for Best Film and Best Original Screenplay (Vinterberg, Tobias Lindholm), and Mads Mikkelsen was named Best Actor for his portrayal of a 40-year-old man in a small provincial town, wrongly suspected of child abuse.

Taking to the stage with his team, Vinterbeg said: ”We have basked in success, and it has...