03/02/2010

Three Danish filmmakers have been nominated for the 82nd Academy awards (see news): Lone Scherfig for her English-language film An Education [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]; Anders Østergaard for his documentary Burma VJ [+see also:
trailer
film profile]; and Joachim Back for his live-action short film The New Tenants.

The director of Italian for Beginners will compete in the top categories of Best Picture, Best Actress (Carey Mulligan) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Nick Hornby). Her UK-produced film (Endgame Entertainment, BBC Films) is also nominated for eight BAFTA awards in England.

Burma VJ has toured world festivals since late 2008, collecting numerous awards along the way, including the main Joris Ivens Award and Amnesty Award at IDFA 2008, and the 2009 Robert for Best Feature-Length Documentary in Denmark.

The film on undercover video reporters bringing images from their closed country to the world was produced by Denmark’s Magic Hour Films, in co-production with Kamoli Films, WG Film (Sweden) and Mediamente (Norway). The film was sold by Swiss-based First Hand Films to a dozen theatrical distributors (including Dogwoof Pictures in the UK and Oscilloscope in the US), as well as to broadcasters in over 100 territories.

Back’s The New Tenants was produced by M&M Productions in Denmark in co-production with Park Pictures in the US. This is the fifth Oscar nomination in the short film category for M&M Productions, who has won twice, for Anders Thomas Jensen’s Election Night in 1999 and Martin Strange Hansen’s This Charming Man in 2003.

The New Tenants will be competing against Sweden’s Instead of Abracadabra by Patrik Eklund, produced by Direktörn & Fabrikörn.

The Oscars ceremony will be held in Los Angeles on March 7.