04/09/2013 - Two thrillers - Swedish director Jens Jonsson’s Life Deluxe and Danish director Mikkel Nørgaard’s The Keeper of Lost Causes – are Midnight Passion at Busan in South Korea

The Busan International Film Festival in South Korea – the largest showcase in Asia – has found thriller content for its Midnight Passion section in Scandinavia: Swedish director Jens Jonsson’s Life Deluxe (photo), which was domestically released last Friday (August 30), and Danish director Mikkel Nørgaard’s The Keeper of Lost Causes [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Eugenio Mira
film profile], which had its world premiere in the Locarno International Film Festival, are both selected for the programme, which unspools between October 3-12.

Concluding the Easy Money trilogy from Swedish author Jens Lapidus’ Stockholm Noir series, Life Deluxe stars Joel Kinnaman, Matias Varela and Martin Wallström in the world of crime – JW has not wasted his time in prison, he is planning a comeback; Jorge is tired of his new square existence and plans his last heist; and someone is out to get the Godfather himself, Radovan Kranjic. The film opened No 1 on the local charts with 85,000 admissions over the weekend.

The Keeper of Lost Causes, which will be launched in Denmark on October 3, introduces the franchise of four films based on the novels by Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen, starring Nikolaj Lie Kaas as deputy detective superintendent Carl Mørck, of Department Q - for "cases of special focus" – and Swedish actor Fares Fares as his sidekick Assad. In their first case they investigate the disappearance of a politician five years earlier; she is presumed dead, but it is worse than that.

Swedish director Anna Odell’s feature debut, The Reunion [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], which will have its world premiere tomorrow (September 5) in Venice’s Critics Week, will screen in Busan’s Flash Forward sidebar. With Erik Ehn, Fredrik Meyer and Kamila Benhamza in the leads, it describes a class reunion after 20 years, where old hierarchies and truths are unexpectedly questioned.

Home – the first feature by Swedish director Maximilian Hult – has also been selected for Flash Forward. Starring Moa Gammel, Simon J Berger and Lia Boysen, it is the story of Lou, who lives in the big city with her mother Christine, her only family, she thinks. So she is surprised to learn that her grandfather just died, and her grandmother is still alive.

Swedish director Nima Yousefi’s shortKilimanjaro – about an elderly couple soon to retire, but whose lives are clouded by the wife’s dementia – will unspool in the Wide Angle Short Film section.