20/02/2012

”This should call off all talks of a crisis in Danish cinema. OK, some Danish films don’t work, but they are probably not very good. We have had our best year ever – and I would say so have Danish films,” raved Zentropa Entertainments co-founder and chief, Danish producer Peter Aalbæk Jensen (pictured), as he returned from the Berlin International Film Festival on Sunday (February 19).

Produced by Zentropa, Danish director Susanne Bier’s In a Better World [+see also:
trailer
film profile] won both a Golden Globe and an Oscar for Best Foreign-Language Film, garnering her a European Film Award for Best Director; Zentropa co-founder Lars von Trier’s Melancholia [+see also:
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interview: Lars von Trier
film profile] scooped two European Film Awards, including Best European Film.

At the Berlinale Zentropa’s A Royal Affair [+see also:
film review
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interview: Mikkel Boe Følsgaard
interview: Nikolaj Arcel
film profile], directed by Nikolaj Arcel, received two Silver Bears – one for Best Original Screenplay (Arcel, Rasmus Heisterberg), the other for Best Actor (Mikkel Boe Følsgaard, who stars with Alicia Vikander and Mads Mikkelsen and who is still a student at the Danish National Theatre School).

Produced by Louise Vesth, Sisse Graum Jørgensen and Meta Louise Foldager, the €6.4 million historical drama will be released domestically on March 29 through Nordisk Film A/S. Both Aalbæk Jensen and Zentropa co-founder/partner von Trier have executive produced, and von Trier also served as consultant to the director.

Both A Royal Affair and Bier’s upcoming Zentropa film All You Need Is Love, starring Irish actor Pierce Brosnan with Danish actress Trine Dyrholm, are more or less sold out worldwide through TrustNordisk – a few countries are waiting for Bier to finish her film, which is still in the post and scheduled for an August 30 launch in Denmark.

Next from Zentropa is Danish director Katrine Wiedemann’s secopnd feature The Caretaker starring Lars Mikkelsen and Julie Zangenberg in a Kim Fupz Aakeson story of the relationship between an obtuse caretaker and a mysterious girl he discovers in an empty apartment.

The company’s current line-up also includes new films by Danish directors Malene Choi Jensen (Beast [+see also:
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film profile], a feature debut), Simon Staho, whose Love Is In The Air [+see also:
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film profile] was screening in the Berlinale’s Generation 14plus and Per Fly, of The Bench/Inheritance/Manslaughter [+see also:
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film profile] fame (Balkan).