14/11/2012 - When preparing a new take on Vladimir Nabokov’s Laughter in the Dark, the Danish director adds the first adaption of Henrik Pontoppidan’s novel to his dance card

When Danish director Bille August (photo) last time adapted a Danish literary classic for the cinema, he won an Oscar for Best Foreign-Language Feature: Pelle the Conqueror (1987), from Martin Andersen Nexø’s novel (written between 1906-1910).

Now Denmark’s Nordisk Film Production has signed him for another one - Henrik Pontoppidan’s Lucky Per – which Karin Trolle and Thomas Heinesen will produce, with principal photography scheduled for 2014. Nordisk secured the rights from the Gyldendal Group Agency.

Acknowledged as his masterpiece, Pontoppidan – who was part of the late 19th century’s modern breakthrough in Scandinavia - wrote the novel between 1898-1904, and received the Nobel Prize in 1917 for his “authentic descriptions of present-day life in Denmark.”

Lucky Per is the story of the vicar’s son from Jutland and his quest for a happy life. After a difficult upbringing he severs family ties and goes to Copenhagen, where he gets involved in a visionary project much ahead of its time, but his social legacy catches up with him.

“It is like made for cinema - to me it has always been the greatest novel written in Danish. Lucky Per personifies the complexity and contradictions of the Danish soul,” said August, whose first local feature in 25 years Marie Krøyer [+see also:
trailer
film profile] is currently closing in on 300,000 admissions domestically.

Before his Danish project, however, he will make a detour to Germany, where Berlin’s Inuit Pictures has contracted him for a new take on Russian author Vladimir Nabokov’s Laughter in the Dark. His new film, the German-produced Night Train to Lisbon [+see also:
film review
trailer
making of
film profile], will have its world premiere on February 28.