26/09/2013 - Danish director Ole Christian Madsen (Flame & Citron, SuperClásico) will portray Erik Skaløe, lead singer in Danish rock group the Steppenwolves, who committed suicide at 25

Danish director Ole Christian Madsen, whose local blockbuster Flame & Citron [+see also:
trailer
film profile] sold 673,000 tickets domestically, and whose SuperClásico [+see also:
trailer
film profile] was submitted for the 2012 Oscars,will next month (October 2) start principal photography for Itsi Bitsi, portraying an icon in Danish hippie culture, Erik Skaløe, lead singer for Danish rock group the Steppenwolves. The film will be released domestically on January 15, 2015, by SF Film.

A beatnik seeking out, exploring and challenging the world with friends so intensely that he became a model for the emerging hippie movement in the early 1960’s, Skaløe and his group issued the cult record, HIP, in 1967. The following year he committed suicide, at 25, on the boarder of India and Pakistan.

A song on HIP, but also his nickname for his great love Iben Nagel Rasmussen, Itsi Bitsi takes place between 1962-1968 in Denmark, France, Spain, North Africa, Greece, Iraq, Nepal, Pakistan and India, from a script by Madsen and Bo Hr. Hansen; Danish producer Lars Bredo Rahbek, of Nimbus Film, has packaged the project with Mainstream and Beofilm, Danish commercial pubcaster TV2, and Sweden’s Bleck Film.

Two newcomers, 26-year-old Joachim Fjelstrup, recently educated from Statens Scenekunstskole in Copenhagen,and 25-year-old Marie Touyrell Søderberg, a 2012 graduate from Odense Theater’s Acting School (photo - with Madsen, to the left), will star as Skaløe and Rasmussen, with Anette Støvelbæk and Thure Lindhardt, Sweden’s Ola Rapace, Julia Ragnarsson, as well as Christian Gade Bjerrum, Johannes Nymark, Jakob Randrup.

Photo credit: Per Arnesen