11/04/2012 - Danish director Annette K. Olesen directs a remake of Danish author Anders Bodelsen’s 1977 thriller with Trine Dyrholm and Kim Bodnia in the leads

When in 1977 Danish directors Tom Hedegaard and Franz Ernst filmed The Marksman, from a script by Danish author Anders Bodelsen, the controversial issue was nuclear power – are you for or against?

”That was before the Fall – the murder of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, terror, climate changes. Our reality has totally changed since then. When we worked on the script last summer, Copenhagen was flooded, and the Utøya tragedy in Norway took place. Scaringly enough, The Marksman is more relevant today than it was when it was written,” said Danish director Annette K Olesen (pictured).

Having most recently directed four episodes of the Danish DR-TV series Borgen/The Government, after her latest feature Little Soldier [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2008) which garnered her the Ecumenical Prize at the Berlinale, Olesen is currently directing a remake of the political thriller with Trine Dyrholm, Kim Bodnia, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Kristian Halken and Lars Ranthe in the leads.

This time, The Marksman is set over five days in the near future, when a new Danish government has broken its election promises and is about to sign an agreement with the US to extract oil deposits in the Arctic. A journalist (Dyrholm) who is ideologically against the deal is looked up by the anonymous activist (Bodnia) who suggests they collaborate – she writes, he shoots.

The new version is scripted by Lars K Andersen, Michael W Horsten and Åke Sandgren, and produced by Sandgren for Danish major Nordisk Film Production A/S, Danish commercial broadcaster TV2, and supported by the Danish Film Institute. Nordisk has scheduled local release for February next year; TrustNordisk handles international sales.