27/04/2006

As expected (see Cineuropa’s news ), animated/live action film Princess, the highly anticipated feature debut by Anders Morgenthaler, has been offered the prominent Cannes platform of opening the Director’s Fortnight, a major honour for Danish films, which have not had a place in the sidebar in 29 years.

34 year-old Anders Norgenthaler is already well-known on the international festival circuit: Araki: The Killing of the Japanese Photographer, his graduation short from Denmark’s National Film School in 2002, was selected in competition at Berlin in 2003 and won the French Critics Prize at Poitiers’ Rencontres Internationales Henri Langlois.

Princess, which is 80% animated and 20% live action, will undoubtedly be one of the most controversial titles at Cannes. Aimed at a 15+ audience, it is set in the porn industry and involves a 5 year-old girl in the plot. The film stars Stine Fischer Christensen (After the Wedding) and Thure Lindhardt (Angels In Fast Motion).

The €1.2m film was produced by Zentropa’s kid and children division Zentropa GRRRR, in co-production with Germany’s Shotgun Pictures GmbH for the Danish Film Institute’s New Danish Screen initiative, which also backed the two-time Berlin winner A Soap [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Lars Bredo Rahbek
interview: Pernille Fischer Christensen
film profile]. The film has already been pre-sold by Trust Film Sales to several territories, including Benelux (Filmfreak Distributie) and Russia/CIS (Central Partnership).