30/03/2007

Only two months after its launch on the local theatrical distribution market, Zentropa’s Trust Film Distribution (TFD) is orchestrating today’s 70-screen release of Lone Scherfig’s highly anticipated Hjemve (lit. “Homesickness”), her first title made on home turf since her 2000 box office record breaker Italian for Beginners.

Scherfig’s romantic Dogma comedy scored not only at home – becoming one of the biggest theatrical grossers ever with over 828,000 admissions – but also internationally, attracting almost three million spectators from 25 territories across Europe and in the US.

The Danish director then turned to English-language filmmaking with Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2002), which toured the festival circuit and won several awards without, however, bringing in the expected cinemagoing crowd.

Five years later, Scherfig is back on familiar ground with a new Danish comedy spiced up with many ingredients borrowed from Italian for Beginners: this film also revolves around six characters who live in a small provincial Danish town, three of which are played by actors from the first film (Lars Kaalund, Peter Gantzler and Ann Eleonora Jørgensen).

But if Italian for Beginners dealt with loneliness and the universal yearning for love, Hjemve is more about trust and solidarity. In Hjemve, co-written by Scherfig and Niels Hausgaard, the town people no longer trust each other. They even get frightened by a naked man seen walking through town one early morning.

Luckily, a small group of people are determined to find the naked man and help the town return to normal and soon find out that not only are they helping each other – they are also helping themselves.

“The film is not a new Italian for Beginners, but it does work in the same way, many actors are the same, so it was natural for us to mention it in the campaign”, explained TFD’s managing director Jimmy Bredow. Supported by a major DKK 2m (€268,000) marketing campaign, the film relied heavily on its eye-catching poster, showing some 100 naked men in a square. Trust also used one of the heaviest preview-campaigns ever conducted in Denmark, with some 70 sneak previews around the country to spread word-of-mouth.

The film was produced by Sisse Graum Jørgensen for Zentropa Entertainment with support from the Danish Film Institute, DR TV and Film Byn. Sales agent Trust Film Sales will introduce the film to international buyers in Cannes, where it should have a major platform.