News

“The Wife” director Björn Runge was at Sweden’s Göteborg Film Festival over the weekend to tease his stars-packed passionate Swedish drama “Burn All My Letters” which Sf Studios is producing.

Runge was on the ground at the festival’s industry sidebar along with his producer Annika Sucksdorff, and lead actors Asta Kamma August (“The Pact”) and Gustav Lindh (“Queen of Hearts”). The movie is an adaptation of Alex Schulman’s bestselling novel by the same name. Bill Skarsgård, who wasn’t there in Goteborg, also plays a leading role in the film.

The several clips played during the Goteborg presentation, which showcased the film’s dedicated performances, atmosphere and glossy production design, drew rowdy applause from industry participants and locals. Runge also revealed that Jacob Mühlrad, the celebrated Swedish art music composer, is creating his first film score for the movie.

“Burn All My Letters” marks Runge’s follow...

“Burn All My Letters,” Swedish filmmaker Björn Runge’s follow up to his Glen Close starrer “The Wife,” has just started shooting “Burn All My Letters.” The decade-spanning love drama stars Bill Skarsgård (“Deadpool”) and is based on Alex Schulman’s bestselling novel of the same name.

Sverrir Gudnason has just joined the cast as Schulman and stars alongside Sonja Richter who plays Amanda Schulman, one of Denmark’s greatest actresses. The rest of the cast comprises Marika Lindström (“Daybreak”), Sten Ljunggren (“Border”), as well as Asta Kamma August (“Follow The Money”) and Gustav Lindh (“Rider of Justice”).

“Burn All My Letters” is produced by Sf Studios and sold by REinvent International Sales who have unveiled a first still from the shoot in Sweden (pictured).

Inspired by true events, the story revolves around Karin Stolpe’s complex relationship with her husband Sven Stolpe and her passionate love affair with Olof Lagercrantz...

TrustNordisk has scored a raft of key territory sales on Maria Sodahl’s “Hope,” which won the European Cinemas Label Award at this year’s Berlin Film Festival. “Hope” world premiered at Toronto in the Discovery section in 2019.

The heartfelt drama stars Stellan Skarsgard and Andrea Braein Hovig (“All the Beauty”) as a couple with a large blended family whose life breaks down when the wife is diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, exposing neglected love. The film is inspired by Sodahl’s life and what she went through after discovering she had brain cancer many years ago.

“Hope” has just been pre-selected for the European Film Awards and picked up two nods at this year’s Amanda Awards in Norway, including the best actress award for Bræin Hovig, who delivered a strong performance as Anja, a forty-something accomplished professional who runs the household of her extended family and has to fight a deadly cancer.

The six-episode crime-drama will start principal photography later this spring. Stockholm-born actress-writer-director Pernilla August will direct the six episodes of a brand-new crime-drama series entitled Blackwater, commissioned by Sweden’s pubcaster Svt. August debuted as a director in 2005, with the short Time Bomb, which was followed by her successful first feature as a writer-director, Beyond (2010), a movie that starred Noomi and Ola Rapace in the lead roles and represented Sweden at the 2012 Academy Awards. Before working on her new effort, August directed a number of episodes of the TV series The Legacy (2014-2017) and her sophomore feature, A Serious Game (2016). Blackwater is based upon Kerstin Ekman’s 1993 best-selling crime novel of the same name. The story, adapted by Maren Louise Käehn (Queen of Hearts), begins on a midsummer night in 1970, when two tourists are found murdered in a tent, far up in the mountains of Northern...

Swedish broadcaster Svt has ordered a six-part TV adaptation of Kerstin Ekman’s crime novel “Blackwater” from Piv Bernth’s Apple Tree Productions. The series will be coproduced with Ard Degeto in Germany, and Filmpool Nord, and distributed internationally by ITV Studios. It has pre-sold to Dr in Denmark, Nrk in Norway, Yle in Finland, and Ruv in Iceland.

Bernth, the International Emmy and BAFTA award-winning CEO of Apple Tree Productions, former head of drama at Dr, and producer of “The Killing,” will lead production on “Blackwater.” Bernth will take part in a discussion on ITV international productions at Berlinale Series Market on Wednesday, organized by Variety.

“Blackwater” will be adapted for television as a premium crime drama series by Maren Louise Käehne and directed by Pernilla August. Marek Wieser will serve as director of photography and Oscar-winning Anna Asp will handle production design.

Originally published in Sweden in 1993, the...

Stellan Skarsgard is set to star in “Hope,” Maria Sodahl’s Norwegian drama that Scandinavian sales powerhouse TrustNordisk has just boarded.

Skarsgard, who has the lead role in the Berlinale competition title “Out Stealing Horses,” stars in “Hope” opposite Andrea Braein Hovig (“All the Beauty”). The film is the story of a couple with a large blended family that has grown apart, but when the wife is diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, their life breaks down and exposes neglected love.

The movie is being produced by producer Thomas Robsahm at Motlys, the banner behind Pernilla August’s “A Serious Game,” Eskil Vogt’s “Blind” and Joachim Trier’s movies, notably “Oslo, 31. August” and “Louder Than Bombs.”

Silje Nikoline Glimsdal, TrustNordisk’s sales and project manager, said the film is a “heartfelt and honest story.”

“‘Hope’ both captivates and inspires you by portraying the circumstances facing a serious and life-changing illness,...

The 69th Berlin International Film Festival will open on February 7, 2019 with the world premiere of Lone Scherfig’s drama The Kindness of Strangers, which will also play in competition.

The English-language Denmark-Canada co-production charts the interconnected story of a handful of New Yorkers struggling with personal crises during the city’s unforgiving winter. The ensemble cast includes Zoe Kazan, Tahar Rahim, Andrea Riseborough, Caleb Landry Jones, Jay Baruchel and Bill Nighy.

HanWay Films represents worldwide sales rights with backers including Ingenious Media and Apollo Media. Entertainment One will distribute the film in Canada and Sf Studios in Scandinavia.

Malene Blenkov produced the film for Denmark’s Creative Alliance and Canada’s Strada Films with the participation of The Danish Film Institute and Telefilm Canada, Danmarks Radio, Ontario Creates, Copenhagen Film Fund, Swedish Film Institute, Nordisk Film & TV Fond, Entertainment One and Ingenious Senior Film Fund / Apollo Media, in co-production with Sweden’s Unlimited Stories,...

From its deceptively dismissive title on down, director Bjorn Runge’s “The Wife” is much more than its premise suggests, anchored by not one but two performances that dimensionalize not just a marriage but a professional partnership that, as in real life, only seems comprehensible from the inside. Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce bring to volatile, vibrant life the accumulated regret and resentments, as well as generosity and love, of a discontented wife and her prize-winning novelist husband whose shared struggle both bonds them and forges a rift that’s unable to be healed.

Close stars as Joan, the ceaselessly patient wife of acclaimed novelist Joe Castleman (Pryce), whose work earns him a Nobel Prize for Literature. For her, a position even on the periphery of his spotlight is too much; she would rather plan Joe’s itinerary and organize his medication in complete anonymity than receive another syrupy compliment...

IMAX has inked a deal with Vox Cinemas, the Middle East’s largest exhibitor, for a minimum of four new theatres in Saudi Arabia. Four theatres will be added to new multiplexes in Riyadh. The first IMAX theatre has opened at Vox Cinemas’ Riyadh Park Mall venue. Vox Cinemas was awarded its licence to operate cinemas in the Kingdom and plans to invest SAR2B (Us$533.3M) to open 600 screens in Saudi Arabia over the next five years. Today’s agreement brings the IMAX contracted network in Saudi Arabia to at least five, with two currently open.

Kelly Macdonald’s Puzzle, which is directed by Big Beach principal Marc Turtletaub and was picked up earlier this year by Sony Pictures, will open the Edinburgh International Film Festival. The drama will be joined at the Scottish festival, which runs June 20 through July 1, by Anna And The Apocalypse, Jack Lowden-fronted thriller...

B-Reel’s past credits include ‘Euphoria’, ‘Gentlemen’ and ‘Before We Die’.

Nordisk Film said it is is ramping up its output of original Nordic film and TV series, and also unveiling a new five-picture deal with Sweden’s B-Reel Films.

Stockholm-based B-Reel Films (Brf) has past credits including Mikael Marcimain’s Gentlemen, Lisa Langseth’s Euphoria, TV series Before We Die and Pernilla August’s A Serious Game.

This follows Nordisk’s recent announcement of a three-year output deal with Swedish directors Helena Bergström and Colin Nutley and their production company Sweetwater.

Lone Korslund, VP acquisition and co-production at Nordisk Film,...

The 10 young European actors selected for this year’s Shooting Stars initiative are in town to meet the global film industry.

While young acting talent is spotlighted annually by initiatives such as Bafta’s Rising Star award and Screen International’s Stars of Tomorrow, European Film Promotion’s (Efp) Shooting Stars programme is the most visible celebration of next-generation thespian talent allied to an A-list film festival.

Each year, 10 young European actors are awarded the Shooting Star accolade at the Berlinale, a five-person jury having selected the winners from submissions by the 37 Efp member countries. The recipients travel to Berlin to meet producers, casting directors and other film industry figures, and are feted at a ceremony at the Berlinale Palast, which this year takes place on Monday February 19.

This year’s line-up includes UK Screen Star Of Tomorrow Michaela Coel, Norway’s Thelma star Eili Harboe, Hungary’s Réka Tenki, who appeared in last...

Today's list of films added to the lineup for this year's Berlinale (February 11 through 21) is short but big: World premieres of Terence Davies's A Quiet Passion with Cynthia Nixon as Emily Dickinson, Jennifer Ehle, Keith Carradine, Jodhi May, Catherine Bailey, Emma Bell and Duncan Duff; Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Creepy with Hidetoshi Nishijima, Yuko Takeuchi, Teruyuki Kagawa, Haruna Kawaguchi and Masahiro Higashide; Pernilla August's Den allvarsamma leken (A Serious Game) with Sverrir Gudnason, Karin Franz Körlof, Liv Mjönes, Michael Nyqvist and Mikkel Boe Følsgaard; and Sonia Kennebeck's documentary National Bird. Plus the international premiere of Don Cheadle's Miles Ahead. » - David Hudson...

Today's list of films added to the lineup for this year's Berlinale (February 11 through 21) is short but big: World premieres of Terence Davies's A Quiet Passion with Cynthia Nixon as Emily Dickinson, Jennifer Ehle, Keith Carradine, Jodhi May, Catherine Bailey, Emma Bell and Duncan Duff; Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Creepy with Hidetoshi Nishijima, Yuko Takeuchi, Teruyuki Kagawa, Haruna Kawaguchi and Masahiro Higashide; Pernilla August's Den allvarsamma leken (A Serious Game) with Sverrir Gudnason, Karin Franz Körlof, Liv Mjönes, Michael Nyqvist and Mikkel Boe Følsgaard; and Sonia Kennebeck's documentary National Bird. Plus the international premiere of Don Cheadle's Miles Ahead. » - David Hudson...

The British Film Institute is partnering with Aardman Animations are launching a new scheme backed by £1 million of lottery funding to help support the development and production of new animated feature films and the creative talent making them. The BFI will provide funding for up to two years to three filmmakers or filmmaker teams to develop their projects with dedicated development support through the BFI Aardman Animation Development Lab. The process for developing animated feature films is lengthy and expensive limiting the opportunities for British filmmakers. Wallace & Gromit producer Aardman will work with the filmmakers – animators, writers, directors, producers – to shape their ideas with the aim of emerging with a set of greenlight-ready materials for their films, ready to advance to production. The closing date for applications is November 28.

Swedish actor Sverrir Gudnason will topline The Serious Game, directed by Pernilla August and scripted by Lone Scherfig based on the novel by Hjalmar Söderberg.

Pernilla August and Lone Scherfig join forces on an adaptation of Hjalmar Söderberg’s 1912 novel.

Swedish actor Sverrir Gudnason (Monica Z) and Karin Franz Körlof (Nobody Owns Me) are to play the leading roles in The Serious Game.

The film will be directed by Pernilla August (Beyond) and has been scripted by Lone Scherfig (An Education, The Riot Club).

Based on Hjalmar Söderberg’s novel, published in 1912, the story centres on a man and a woman who fall in love when young, and remain in love, but stay separated and marry others.

The book was previously adapted for a 1945 film directed by Rune Carlsten and a 1977 feature, titled Games of Love and Loneliness, directed by Anja Breien.

August said: “The Serious Game is about the dream and longing for the one great love. About Lydia and Arvid who say no, when we want them to say yes.”

Producers are Patrik Andersson and Frida Bargo for B-reel in cooperation...