21/06/2011

Danish director Birgitte Stærmose's feature debut, Room 304 [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], which will have its world premiere in competition at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic (July 1-9), has been picked up for international distribution by the Danish film boutique Level K.

"Stærmose will be a valuable addition to our Future Classics label," said LevelK Managing Director Tine Klint. The US-educated director's shorts have screened at Sundance, Rotterdam and Berlin, with one nominated for a European Film Award.

An ensemble drama with an international cast that including Danish actors Mikael Birkkjær, Stine Stengade, David Dencik and Trine Dyrholm, Room 304 was produced by Jesper Morthorst (Alphaville Pictures Copenhagen) and Igor A Nola, Suza Horvat for Croatian Mainframe.

"By nature I am rather curious, and I have always been fascinated by the hotel as a secret place, taken out of time and space. What happens behind the many closed doors? It is both extremely intimate and strangely anonymous," explained Stærmose.

Scripted by Kim Fupz Aakeson, the film is set in a Copenhagen hotel room, depicting the visitors whose lives intersect by accident or fate - a desperate hotel manager, an abandoned wife, a receptionist with blood on his hands - in a tale of love and longing.

Besides Room 304, Denmark will be represented at Karlovy Vary by Eva Mulvad's documentary The Good Life; Jørgen Leth's Erotic Man; and Icelandic-Danish director Rúnar Rúnarsson's Volcano [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which was launched in Directors' Fortnight at Cannes.