18/05/2012 - While Bille August and Niels Arden Oplev are already in production, Asger Leth and Birger Jensen are about to start their own international ventures

Danish director Bille August (photo), who has wrapped the shoot for his 'existential thriller' Night Train to Lisbon, has been in international demand since his Pelle the Conqueror (1987) won the Golden Palm in Cannes and the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Feature, and his fellow countrymen Niels Arden Oplev, Asger Leth and Birger Jensen are heading for careers abroad.

While August's first Danish film since Pelle, Marie Krøyer [+see also:
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film profile], will be ready for release in October, his adaption of Swiss novelist Pascal Mercier's bestseller is now being sold in Cannes. UK actress Charlotte Rampling and Swiss actor Bruno Ganz will head an all-star cast of Jeremy Irons, Mélanie Laurent, Jack Huston, Christopher Lee and Lena Olin in the $12.7 million production from Germany's Studio Hamburg Worldwide Pictures GmbH & Co KG. and C-Films in Switzerland and Germany.

The $30 million US thriller Dead Man Down, now shooting with Danish director Niels Arden Oplev - whose international career took off for real after The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo [+see also:
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film profile] - has been sold to Film District for American distribution.

Starring Irish actor Colin Farrell and Swedish Millennium lead Noomi Rapace, the film will be released in autumn 2013, it was announced in Cannes. The J.H. Wyman story follows the right-hand man of a New York mobster chief who falls for a woman seeking revenge. Neal Moritz and Wyman produced for Original Films/Frequency Films.

Danish director Asger Leth, who most recently directed Man on the Ledge (2012), will helm Move On, a road movie starring Mads Mikkelsen on a 30-day trip through Europe in summer, which will be released in September.

Audiences in 11 European countries are encouraged to mail input about everything from casting to locations for UK writer Matt Greenhalgh's story about a man (Mikkelsen) arriving at Amsterdam on the way to deliver a silver suitcase somewhere in Europe. The project is backed by Germany's Deutsche Telekom.

Danish director Birger Larsen - who has directed several episodes of The Killing TV series and most recently Those Who Kill - Shadow of the Past [+see also:
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film profile] (2011) - has been signed by France's UGC Images and Les Films du 24 for the English-language thriller, The Ice Princess.

In the adaption of Swedish writer Camilla Läckberg's first bestseller (2002), UK actress Kelly Reilly stars as an author returning to her native town of Fjällbacka; when investigating the murder of an old friend, she discovers truths from her own childhood. The film will go into production early next year.