Park Road’s next installment moves from TV to cinema
Besides being Denmark’s most popular street names (there are 214 of them in the country), Lærkevej (Park Road) lent its name to a high-rated, award-winning television series that has aired for two seasons from autumn 2009.
On Wednesday (July 13) the Danish production outfit Cosmo Film began shooting the third outing, Park Road: Till Death Do Us Part, which is destined for the big screen. Nordisk Film will handle the domestic release and has scheduled the premiere for February 2, 2012.
The spin-off from commercial broadcaster TV2’s drama series is directed by Mogens Hagedorn (photo) from an original screenplay by Mette Heeno, who was also the main writer of the TV series. Cosmo Film’s Mie Andreasen and Tomas Hostrup-Larsen are producing.
TV audiences will recognise the cast – a string of Denmark’s best-known actors, including Søs Egelind, Laura Drasbæk, Anette Støvelbæk, Sarah-Sofie Boussnina, Mia Lyhne, Christian Tafdrup, Søren Spanning, Henrik Prip and Claus Riis Østergaard.
Park Road is set in a typically Danish suburb of detached houses, apparently a perfect idyll, yet ”every neighborhood has a secret” and, in escaping from an incident in the big city, three brothers and sisters soon realise they have jumped from the frying pan into the fire.
”A comedy of death, but also a tribute to life and the importance of living it while you can,” the movie begins with one of the regulars, Elisabeth (Egelind), collapsing during her own party. She appears to be seriously ill, which affects everybody in the street.
The television series won the Danish TV Industry’s top prize for Best (Long) Drama and was nominated for a Golden Nymph in Monte Carlo. It garnered strong ratings, especially with audiences between 21-40, with whom TV2 registered a 47% share.
Nordisk Film has just signed a two-year contract with Cosmo Film to distribute the film and TV series that include Martin P Vandvliet’s upcoming international drama, A Place under the Sun, and Mie Andreasen, Rasmus Thorsen and Mikael Chr Rieks’ thriller Atlantic Privateer.
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