06/06/2013 - Danish award-winning director Pernille Fischer Christensen and writer Kim Fupz Aakeson will depict the life of Swedish author Astrid Lindgren in Astrid

Next year, when Astrid Lindgren's portrait will decorate the Swedish 20-kronor banknote, and Swedish award-winning director Maud Nycander will premiere her documentary biopic on the Swedish author, whose children's books have sold an estimated 150 million copies in 95 languages worldwide, Danish director Pernille Fischer Christensen will start principal photography for Astrid, a feature about her life, which to many is an unknown quantity.

"You don't have to be Swedish to grow up with Lindgren's amazing stories - our ambition is to make a warm and affectionate film that shows how Lindgren from Vimmerby become of the world's most read authors," said Christensen, who is currently filming Someone You Love for Zentropa Entertainments.

Danish writer Kim Fupz Aakeson, who also delivered the screenplays for Christensen's A Soap [+see also:
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interview: Pernille Fischer Christensen
film profile] (2006) and A Family (2010)  - both awarded at the Berlin International Film Festival - is currently working on the script, while Christensen is looking for three actresses to play Lindgren at various ages. Astrid will be produced by Lars G Lindström, for Nordisk Film Production Sweden.

"We think that certain events in Lindgren's life - for instance that she, when very young and living in Denmark, gave birth to a child that was given up for adoption to a Copenhagen family - was crucial to her writing. This is the story we want to tell," Christensen explained.

Lindgren, whose best-sellers include the books about Pippi Longstocking, Karlsson-on-the-Roof, Emil of Lönnebarga and the Six Bullerby Children, had her first Pippi book refused by Sweden's Bonnier Publishing - Time Magazine included it among the 100 most influential novels ever written. She died in 2002.