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PRODUCTION Denmark

It’s That Time of Year for Paprika Steen

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- The Danish actress returns to the director’s chair after ten years away to stage “a dramatic family comedy” penned by playwright Jakob Weis

It’s That Time of Year for Paprika Steen
Actress-director Paprika Steen (© Egmont)

Danish actress Paprika Steen, who received the Danish Film Critics’ Bodil Award for her performance in Ole Christian Madsen’s Superclásico [+see also:
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film profile
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(2012), will return to the director’s chair after ten years away to stage That Time of Year [+see also:
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trailer
film profile
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, “a dramatic family comedy” by Danish author-playwright Jakob Weis.

Steen, who has 63 films to her credit, most recently helmed the romantic comedy With Your Permission [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
 in 2007, which toured 16 festivals; she had previously starred in Weis’ stage play Tove’s Room, in which she played Danish poet Tove Ditlevsen.

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“Next Christmas, we’re going to Thailand! I think this is what many of us feel after yet another Christmas Eve with children, parents, grandparents, bonus children and various in-laws – at least until next year,” said Danish producer Mikael Rieks, who will produce the movie for Nordisk Film Production, with support from Danish regional film centre FilmFyn and the Danish Film Institute. “When you talk about Christmas and this film project, it does not take long for people to begin sharing their own absurd Christmas Eve stories,” added Rieks, who also produced Danish director Martin Zandvliet’s Oscar-nominated Land of Mine [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Louis Hofmann
interview: Martin Zandvliet
film profile
]
, among others. That Time of Year follows the festive celebration in a close-knit family of three siblings, and their spouses, children, grandmothers and dogs. 

“I suppose the best description of it would be a ‘dramatic family comedy’,” explained Steen, who most recently played in SBS Discovery’s thriller series Below the Surface (2017). “It is the story of the big failure of the small failure – a portrayal of the double moral standard in Christmas. Everything has to look like something from the good old days and be so eco-friendly, but today’s Christmas gift is an iPhone.” The film will shoot from November on the island of Funen and will be released domestically in late 2018.

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