11/10/2006

The successful Danish creative team of filmmaker Anders Morgenthaler and producer Sarita Christensen have just sold 33.3% of their new production outfit Copenhagen/Bombay to Nordisk Film, who will also handle the distribution of all their films.

Vibeke Windeløv, the respected producer and ex-collaborator of Lars von Trier, also has a minority stake in the company and will act as executive producer on Copenhagen/Bombay’s upcoming productions.

Commenting on the deal announced yesterday, Christensen said: “We hope, in association with Nordisk Film and Egmont, to be able to realise our ambitions of delivering a high level of original stories for children and youth”.

Copenhagen/Bombay was set up last September by Morgenthaler and Christensen after they left Zentropa Entertainment, for whom they made the Directors Fortnight’s entry Princess [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (released last Wednesday in France) and the upcoming Ekko, both produced as part of the New Danish Screen scheme.

Christensen spent a total of nine years working for Zentropa, where she was assistant producer on several successful feature films, including as Per Fly’s The Bench and Lone Scherfig’s Italian For Beginners, before heading Zentropa’s children and youth division, Zentropa GRRRR. One of her last high profile productions for the division was the family adventure film Island of Lost Souls [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Nikolaj Arcel (King’s Game), the most expensive children’s film ever made in Denmark (€5.2m) with European partners Memfis Film (Sweden), Pain Unlimited (Germany) and Zoma Film (UK).

Copenhagen/Bombay’s first film for Nordisk Film will be The Apple and the Snake, a family film based on a theatre play Morgenthaler wrote in 2005.