30/01/2013 - Danish directors Lone Scherfig, Thomas Vinterberg and Icelandic director Dagur Kári set up co-op with US production company Parts & Labor International

Determined to combine the best of Scandinavian film traditions and practices with the strength and scale of the US film industry, five Danish and one Icelandic top directors have set up Creative Alliance with Danish and American producers to develop English-language films for the international marketplace.

Lone Scherfig (photo), Thomas Vinterberg, Per Fly, Ole Christian Madsen, Janus Metz and Dagur Kári have joined forces with NY-based production company Parts & Labor International, and Danish producers Nicolaj Vibe Michelsen and Jacob Jørgensen. In collaboration with the Danish Film Institute, Scandinavian and European funds, the new co-op has secured finance for instigating the first six projects.

“We are eager to develop films together, to share our energy and expertise, as well as challenging each others craft and talent to ensure that every film reaches its full artistic and commercial potential,” they said in a joint statement. Most of them have previously been connected to Zentropa Entertainments.

All films from Creative Alliance will be developed in Denmark: “Our business model makes it possible for European directors to develop and direct films in the US with support from funding bodies at home,” explained Danish-born producer Lars Knudsen and his American partner Jay Van Hoy, who set up Parts and Labor (now Parts & Labor International) in 2005, dedicated to director-driven, collaborative filmmaking.

Since Wilbur Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself [+see also:
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film profile] (2002), Danish director Lone Scherfig has mainly worked abroad, most recently making One Day (2011); her An Education [+see also:
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film profile] (2002) won the Audience Award in Sundance and three Oscar nominations. Danish Dogme director Thomas Vinterberg has signed three English-language pictures; his latest, in Danish, The Hunt (2012), won Mads Mikkelsen a Best Actor Award at last year’s Cannes.

Credited with the award-winning The Bench, Inheritance and Manslaughter [+see also:
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film profile] trilogy 2000-2005, Per Fly has just finished Monica Zetterlund - A Lingonberry in a Cocktail for Sweden’s StellaNova Film. After Icelandic director Dagur Kári’s US feature The Good Heart [+see also:
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film profile] (2009), he has returned home to shoot with Rocket Man. Danish directors Ole Christian Madsen (Superclásico [+see also:
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film profile]) and Janus Metz (Armadillo [+see also:
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interview: Janus Metz, director of Arm…
film profile]) are yet to enter the international feature scene.