News

A Canneseries main competition contender, “The Dreamer – Becoming Karen Blixen” begins with a voiceover from Connie Nielsen reading, in beautifully cadenced Danish, a letter ‘Out of Africa’ author Karen Blixen writes to her mother in 1931.

In it, she expresses the joy Africa has given her, that the family farm she ran has gone bankrupt, and she will soon take her life.

Exquisite shots of Africa play out, meanwhile, on the screen.

It this mix of lush period detail and big production value and a harder economic edge and sustained portrait of a woman’s sentiments and soul – through read letters, dialog confession and Nielsen’s central commanding central performance – that sets “The Dreamer” apart.

Developed from a concept by Nielsen, “The Dreamer” begins when Blixen near ends, economically and emotionally bankrupt after her farm fails and her soulmate, as she calls English aristocrat Denys Finch Hatton, dies in an air...

AMC Networks genre streamer Shudder has dropped a first trailer for U.K.’s writer-director Ruth Platt’s “Martyrs Lane.” A tragic ghost story, the feature world premieres today at Canada’s Fantasia Festival before being released on Shudder on Sept. 9.

One day after its Fantasia bow, “Martyrs Lane” receives its U.K. premiere on Aug. 20 at the Edinburgh Film Festival.

A ghost story, yes – but one built on the pain of a child whose bedrock parental relation fails her – “Martyrs Lane” turns on Leah, 10, left to her own devices in a rambling vicarage.

Her mother’s too busy by day and distraught at night to attend much to her. Something is clearly wrong. Investigating why her mother sleeps clasping a golden locket, Leah begins to be visited by a cherubic-looking little girl wearing tawdry angel’s wings.

Drawing deep on a humanistic tradition of family relationship-driven films led by...

“Martyrs Lane,” the third feature from Ruth Platt (“The Lesson”), hits Fantasia with a double momentum: Bullish word of mouth, and a recent sale to AMC Networks genre streamer Shudder for North America, U.K., Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.

Produced by London’s Ipso Facto Productions, whose credits take in “Irina Palm” and Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Valhalla Rising,” the LevelK sales title is a ghost story but, like the best of that kind, much more.

Leah, 10, lives in a rambling vicarage with her parents and haughty older sister. But something’s very wrong. Her mother, who sleeps clasping a golden locket, hardly has any time for her. One morning, Leah spots the locket left on the bathroom shelf. She opens it, and steals what she finds inside, sparking the nightly visits of a cherubic looking little girl, sporting shabby angel wings.

“Martyr’s Lane” is described as an...

The Good Traitor (Vores mand I Amerika) Samuel Goldwyn Films Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten Director: Christina Rosendahl Writers: Kristian Bang Foss, Danja Gry Jensen, Christina Rosendahl Cast: Ulrich Thomsen, Burn Gorman, Ross McCall, Zoë Tapper, Denise Gough, Pixie Davies, Henry Goodman, Mikkel Boe Følsgaard, Nicholas Blane Screened […]

The post The Good Traitor Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

Fascinating backroom politics circa WWII are undermined by banal marital melodrama in Danish director Christina Rosendahl’s “The Good Traitor,” resulting in a so-so period drama that raises more questions than it answers. The film centers on the life of diplomat-gone-rogue Henrik Kauffmann, who was posted to Washington, D.C., as Danish Ambassador in 1939. When the Nazis occupy Denmark on April 9, 1940, Kauffmann declares himself the only true representative of the free Danish people and goes on to make a number of high-risk autonomous decisions that, in the long run, help to free his homeland. Unfortunately, the details of Kauffmann’s wheeling and dealing are continually undercut by the film’s concentration on his rather unusual personal life, rendered here in trite narrative clichés.

During a long and distinguished foreign service career, Kauffmann enabled the U.S. to install strategic military bases on Greenland (an autonomous territory of Denmark) during WWII.

Thomas Vinterberg’s box-office hit is one of this year’s big winners, alongside Anders Thomas Jensen’s Riders of Justice and Christina Rosendahl’s The Good Traitor. Last week, Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round collected five prizes at the Roberts, Denmark’s national film and TV awards. The ceremony, held virtually on Saturday 6 February, saw the title winning the award for Best Film, as well as four more statuettes for Best Director, Best Original Screenplay (Thomas Vinterberg and Tobias Lindholm), Best Editing (Anne Østerud and Janus Billeskov Jansen) and Best Lead Actor (Mads Mikkelsen). Despite these challenging times, Another Round has been a box office hit, gaining over 800,000 domestic admissions in 2020. The story of Vinterberg’s film revolves around Martin and three of his friends, all tired high school teachers, who embark on an experiment to uphold a constant level of intoxication throughout the workday. Meanwhile, Anders Thomas Jensen’s Riders of Justice picked.

Other winners from Danish academy include Riders of Justice, Cry Wolf, The Mole.

Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round continues its streak by winning best film, best director, best original screenplay, best actor and best editing at Denmark’s Robert Awards, presented by the Danish Film Academy on Saturday night (Feb 6).

Anders Thomas Jensen’s Riders of Justice, the opening film at Rotterdam last week, also fared well at the Roberts, winning best actress (newcomer Andrea Heick Gadeberg) and best supporting actor for Lars Brygmann, as well as best visual effects.

Another newcomer, Özlem Saglanmak, was named best supporting actress for...

Due to Covid-19 cinema lockdowns or restrictions, box office in the Nordic region plummeted in 2020 year-on-year by 64% in Sweden, 57.6% in Iceland, 57% in Norway, 54% in Finland, and 47% in Denmark.

The dearth of new U.S .tentpoles, combined with strong domestic titles such as “Another Round,” allowed homegrown movies to punch all-time record market shares in Denmark (50.4%), Finland (41.1%) and Norway (35.6%).

The biggest U.S. hit across the Nordics was Disney’s “Frozen 2,” which continued to perform strongly in early 2020 after its Christmas 2019 opening.

Denmark: The Year of ‘Another Round’

Thomas Vinterberg’s Oscar contender and 2020 champion “Another Round” figured among a handful of national titles that saved the Danish cinema year and mitigated Covid-19’s impact on cinemagoing.

National box office sank 47% to Dkk 630 million ($101 million) off 7.2 million ticket sales in 2020. This compares to 13.2 million admissions for a gross box office value of Dkk 1.18 billion ($190 million) in 2019, according to preliminary data...

Samuel Goldwyn Films has acquired from New Europe Film Sales the Norwegian animated feature “Christmas at Cattle Hill,“ which is produced by the leading animation studio Qvisten Animation.

The pick-up is the latest Nordic buy from the high-profile U.S. indie distributor, which is representing the Golden Globe-nominated Danish movie “Another Round,” by Thomas Vinterberg.

Helmed by Will Ashurst, the CGI “Christmas at Cattle Hill” marks the second installment in the adventures of Klara the young city cow and her friends at Cattle Hill.

“’Christmas at Cattle Hill’ was a 2020 Christmas hit in Norway posting over 100,000 admissions despite cinemas’ limited capacity,” said Jan Naszewski, CEO at New Europe Film Sales. “We are happy that it will now travel the world. Samuel Goldwyn Films is our trusted partner who did a great job on the first part of ‘Cattle Hill’ and we’re very glad to continue the collaboration.”

Samuel Goldwyn Films’ Ryan Boring,...

Samuel Goldwyn has acquired U.S. rights to Christina Rosendahl’s World War II-set drama “The Good Traitor” and Ole Christian Madsen’s Danish terrorist drama “The Day We Died” (“Powder Keg”) from REinvent.

Based on true events, “The Day We Died” is headlined by “Game Of Thrones” star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. The film follows the journey of four people connected to the February 2015 terrorist attacks in Copenhagen: a newly released criminal, a filmmaker, a Jewish watchman and a police officer. Only one of them will be left alive. Coster-Waldau stars opposite Lars Brygmann, Albert Arthur Amiryan and Adam Buschard. Creative Alliance produced the film.

“The Good Traitor” is based on the true story of Denmark’s ambassador to the U.S., Henrik Kauffmann. An unsung hero, Kauffmann was the Danish ambassador to Washington in 1939 at the outbreak of World War II and declared himself to be the only true representative...

Sf Studios International will close this week.

Leading Nordic independent studio Sf Studios has expanded its sales deal with Rikke Ennis’ REinvent Studios, to also include Sf’s new Nordic feature films and its huge library of more than 1,000 films.

For the past year, REinvent had handled Sf’s Nordic TV series.

The exclusive, multi-year deal means that Sf will this week shut down its in-house sales department, Sf Studios International, which had included a team of four people led by head of international sales Anita Simovic.

“This is a new approach for how we conduct international sales going forward,...

Sf Studios, the Scandinavian production and distribution powerhouse, has struck an exclusive partnership with REinvent Studios, the banner launched by TrustNordisk’s former CEO Rikke Ennis.

As part of the deal, REinvent will handle international sales for all Sf Studios content, including films, TV series and catalogue titles.

This new deal expands the existing relationship between Sf Studios and REinvent Studios, which has been handling Sf Studios’ Nordic TV series for the past year.

Under the pact, REinvent Studios, headed by Ennis and Helene Aurø, will kick off pre-sales on prestigious Nordic films produced or co-produced by Sf Studios. These include Erik Poppe’s anticipated “The Emigrants,” Bille August’s “The Pact,” Charlotte Sieling’s “Margrete – Queen of the North,” as well as “Omerta 6/12” and “Omerta 7/12” directed by Antti Jokinen.

REinvent Studios will also be selling Sf Studios’ children’s features such as “Pelle No Tail” and “Jerry Maya’s Detective Agency,...