12/02/2018 - The Danish firm is aiming high at Berlin, promoting Lars von Trier, Paprika Steen and Bille August, plus two of its films are getting public screenings and three are in the market

Danish international sales agent TrustNordisk is making its way to Berlin this week with a bulging line-up that covers the 68^th Berlin International Film Festival (15-25 February) as well as the European Film Market (15-23 February), including, among others, Erik Poppe and Pernille Fischer Christensen’s latest films, plus Lars von Trier, Paprika Steen and Bille August in pre-sales.

Starting with the Official Competition, one year after his major commercial hit The King’s Choice [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Erik Poppe
film profile], which was featured in Panorama, Norwegian director Erik Poppe returns to Berlin for the third time with U – July 22 [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Erik Poppe
film profile]. The film is the first fictional approach to the political terrorist attack that took place on 22 July 2011, when an armed, right-wing extremist opened fire on 500 youths at a political summer camp on the island of Utøya, outside Oslo. Following 18-year-old Kaja, the story, which is based on survivors’ testimonies, depicts all the events of that day.

In the Special Gala section, Pernille Fischer Christensen will present her biopic of acclaimed Swedish children’s author Astrid Lindgren in Becoming Astrid [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alba August
interview: Pernille Fischer Christensen
film profile]. The film follows young Lindgren (Alba August) and the events that shaped her personality – especially a near-miraculous event that affected her profoundly. The movie also follows the obstacles that Lindgren had to overcome to become a storyteller and depicts society’s religious and conservative norms that she had to break to follow her destiny.

At the EFM, TrustNordisk will be rocking up with the audience-pleasing real-time thriller The Guilty [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gustav Möller
film profile] by debutant Gustav Möller, which has already taken part in Sundance and Rotterdam, and the firm has high hopes for a wider release, as many territories have already secured the rights. Also, two local Norwegian hits have made it onto the market’s line-up: Mikkel Brænne Sandemose’s fantasy-adventure The Ash Lad: In the Hall of the Mountain King [+see also:
trailer
interview: Eili Harboe
film profile], which was the most successful Norwegian film of 2017 (see the news), and Harald Zwart’s World War II drama 12^th Man [+see also:
trailer
interview: Harald Zwart
film profile], which is aiming to perform just as well this year.

In pre-sales, The House That Jack Built by Lars von Trier is probably still the jewel in TrustNordisk’s crown, although most territories have already been covered. The latest film by award-winning Danish actress-director Paprika Steen, entitled That Time of Year [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], will be introduced for the first time in a pre-sales slot. It is a dramedy set during a family gathering that takes place around Christmas Eve.

The rest of the pre-sales drives include a period drama by Michael Noer, which has elements of a dark moral western called Before the Frost [+see also:
trailer
interview: Elliott Crosset Hove
film profile] (working title: A Better Life); the Norwegian figure-skating biopic Sonja – The White Swan [+see also:
trailer
interview: Anne Sewitsky
interview: Ine Marie Wilmann
film profile] by Anne Sewitsky; the disaster movie The Quake [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by John Andreas Andersen; and the Swedish love story Swoon [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein
film profile], directed by Bridge/Bron duo Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein.

Finally, TrustNordisk is promoting three TV series: Bille August’s period drama A Fortunate Man, based on the novel Lucky Per by Nobel Prize-winning author Henrik Pontoppidan; the thriller-drama Twin by Kristoffer Metcalfe and Erika Calmeyer; and the new Zentropa family adventure, Finding Home by Christian E Christiansen.