12/06/2006

The duo behind the 2006 Director’s Fortnight’s opening film Princess [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], Danish filmmaker Anders Morgenthaler and producer Sarita Christensen, have just left Zentropa to set up their own production house with an emphasis on films for children and youth.

Thirty year-old Christensen joined Zentropa in 1997, where she worked as assistant producer on several successful feature films, including Per Fly’s The Bench and Lone Scherfig’s Italian For Beginners. In 2004, she set up the first division dedicated to children and youth, Zentropa GRRRR, for Lars von Trier and Peter Aalbæk Jensen, co-owners of Zentropa.

Her first production there was the animated TV series WulffMorgenthaler in 2005, a TV adaptation for DR2 of Morgenthaler’s comic strip created with Mikael Wulff and published in the Danish newspaper Politiken. The TV series rapidly gained cult status in Denmark.

Morgenthaler’s feature film debut, Princess, was produced by Christensen on a very tight budget (€1.2m) for the Danish Film Institute’s New Danish Screen initiative in collaboration with Germany’s Shotgun Pictures. The adult-oriented animated film – 20% of which was live action – about one man’s crusade against the porn industry, was sold by Trust Film Sales to several key territories at Cannes (see news) and will be released next Friday in Denmark.

Christensen also produced the ambitious family adventure film Island of Lost Souls by Nikolaj Arcel (King’s Game) for Zentropa GRRRR, which is currently in post-production. The most expensive children film ever made in Denmark, the €5.2m title is a major European co-production with Memfis Film (Sweden), Pain Unlimited (Germany) and Zoma Film (UK).

Christensen told Danish film magazine Ekko that she left Zentropa because the company became “too big for its own good”. At her new production outfit (still without a name), she will produce Morgenthaler’s future films as well as other features targeting children and teenagers.