03/05/2012 - Historical dramas This Life (aka The Hvidsten Group) and A Royal Affair to enter the list of top ten films over the past ten years

Two historical dramas, Danish directors Anne Grethe Riis’s This Life (aka The Hvidsten Group - pictured) and Nikolaj Arcel’s A Royal Affair [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mikkel Boe Følsgaard
interview: Nikolaj Arcel
film profile], brought spring to Denmark with Danish films’ best results in the past seven years.

During the first four months of 2012, local fare sold 1,737,000 tickets, to control more than a third of the market, only matched by 2005 when the Danish Film Institute started publishing annual statistics.

After a strong local opening for This Life, about patriotic resistance against Nazi occupation in the Danish province during World War II, Danish producer Regner Grasten doubled his expectations from 250,000 to 500,000 tickets. On April 29, it was closing in on 700,000 and is already number two in the list of top ten films over the past ten years.

After winning two prizes at the Berlin International Film Festival, Arcel’s 18th century love affair at the Danish court between the King’s physician-in-ordinary and the Queen has, since its March 29 premiere, taken 427,258 admissions domestically, and will shortly enter the top ten-year charts.

While Grasten will start international sales for his film with Jens Jørn Spottag and Bodil Jørgensen in the leads during the upcoming Cannes International Film Festival (May 16-27), TrustNordisk has closed most markets for A Royal Affair, starring Mads Mikkelsen and Alicia Vikander, and produced by Zentropa Entertainments.

Also contributing to the Danish box office record were Martin Miehe-Renard’s My Sister’s Kids Home Alone (307,759 admissions), Mogens Hagedorn’s Park Road - the Movie [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (100,806), and Henrik Ruben Genz’s Excuse Me (87,871).