18/07/2013 - Danish director Tobias Lindholm's multi-award-winning piracy thriller screening also to include members of the Kenyan cast who have been involved in real-life hijackings

Danish director Tobias Lindholm’s Tobias Lindholm’s piracy thriller, A Hijacking [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Tobias Lindholm
film profile], which won both Danish national film prizes, the Bodil and the Robert, for Best Feature, has been selected for a special screening at the United Nations’ World Refugee Day celebrated in Nairobi tomorrow (July 19). Last year US director Angelina Jolie’s In the Land of Blood and Honey, about the Bosnian war, was on show for the occasion marked by the UN's High Commissioner for Refugees in Somalia.

Scripted by Lindholm, with Pilou Asbæk and Søren Malling (both Borgen (Government) 2010-2011) in the leads, A Hijacking deals with the human consequences of modern piracy, after a cargo ship, MV Bozen, is captured by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean. A few years earlier the ship had been conquered by Somali raiders, and several of the cast were sailors with experiences from real-life hijacking incidents.

Keith Pearson, who plays the ship’s captain, and other Kenyan cast members have been invited to the screening on World Refugee Day (which has actually June 20), along with UN delegates, representatives of non-governmental organisations, sponsors and media. UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees has instigated several projects in Somalia to prevent young boys to be tempted by piracy or militias.

Produced by Tomas Radoor and René Ezra for Nordisk Film Production, A Hijacking was world-premiered in the Venice International Film Festival, and later screened in the Toronto International Film Festival. A strong ticket for Danish international sales agency, TrustNordisk, it has been licensed to Magnolia Pictures for the US, Arrow Film for the UK and Ad Vitam for France.