panorAmA sPEciAl GEnErATion 14PlUs & kPlUs sHooTinG sTAr 2008 What No One Knows is a political thriller: When Fighter (Natasha Arthy) and Worlds Apart (Niels Stine Fischer Christensen is this year’s Danish Berlin Thomas’ sister dies in an accident he discovers Arden Oplev) in Generation 14plus, and A Tale of Shooting Star. She stars in Anders Morgenthaler’s that her death may be connected to their deceased Two Mozzies (Flemming Quist Møller and Jannik Echo, which will be screening at the European Film father’s work in military intelligence. Hastrup) in Generation Kplus. Market in Berlin. PAGE 3 PAGE 6-14 PAGE 15 l1l FILM IS PUBLISHED BY THE# DANISH FILM INS62TiTUTE / febRuarY 2008 PAGE 2 / FILM#62 / BERLIN SPECIAL ISSUE l1l FILM#62/ BERLIN ISSUE INSIDE 0!./2!-!ô30%#)!, '%.%2!4)/.ô0,53ôô+0,53 3(//4).'ô34!2ô 7HATô.Oô/NEô+NOWSôISôAôPOLITICALôTHRILLERô7HENôô &IGHTERô.ATASHAô!RTHY ôANDô7ORLDSô!PARTô.IELSô!R 3TINEô&ISCHERô#HRISTENSENôISôTHISôYEARSô$ANISHô"ERLINô 4HOMASôSISTERôDIESôINôANôACCIDENTôHEôDISCOVERSô DENô/PLEV ôINô'ENERATIONôPLUS ôANDô!ô4ALEôOFô4WOô 3HOOTINGô3TARô3HEôCANôCURRENTLYôBEôSEENôINô!NDERSô THATôHERôDEATHôMAYôBEôCONNECTEDôTOôTHEIRôDECEASEDô -OZZIESô&LEMMINGô1UISTô-LLERôANDô*ANNIKô(ASTRUP ô -ORGENTHALERSô%CHO ôWHICHôWILLôBEôSCREENEDôATôTHEô FATHERSôWORKôINôMILITARYôINTELLIGENCEô INô'ENERATIONô+PLUSô %UROPEANô&ILMô-ARKETôINô"ERLINô PANORAmA sPECIAl 0!'%ô 0!'%ô 0!'%ô His fifth time in Berlin, Søren Kragh-Jacobsen first came to the festival audience’s l1l attention in 1982, where he won for best children’s film with Rubber Tarzan, &),-ô)3ô05",)3(%$ô"9ô4(%ô$!#.)3(ô&),-ô).3624)454%ôô&%"25!29ô and again in 1999, winning a Silver Bear for his Dogme feature Mifune. What No One Knows is a political thriller, produced by Nimbus Film. PAGE 3 GEnErATION 14PlUs A classic coming-of-age story is how Natasha Arthy describes her new film Søren Kragh-Jacobsen & Ghita Nørby Photo: Ole Kragh-Jacobsen Fighter, though its combination of a young woman of Turkish background and a passionate love for kung fu is hardly conventional. PAGE 6 GEnErATION 14PlUs After his international hit We Shall Overcome, director Niels Arden Oplev is back with a new drama about youthful rebellion against oppressive mores. Based on a true story, Worlds Apart takes an unblinking look at a teenage girl’s struggles, when falling in love makes her challenge the rigid principles governing the lives of Jehovah’s Witnesses. PAGE 9 Fighter Photo: Sebastian Winterø GEnErATION kPlUs Flemming Quist Møller and Jannik Hastrup have jazzed up Quist Møller’s Film #62 / BErlin timeless children’s book The Biking Gnat and the Dancing Gnat with heapings of February 2008 hot licks in their new animated feature, A Tale of Two Mozzies. PAGE 12 sHOOTING sTAr PUBlisHED BY Danish Film Institute EDiTors Agnete Dorph Stjernfelt, Stine Fischer Christensen has a love affair with the camera. It loves her girlish Susanna Neimann good looks and soulful gaze. At 21, she has already demonstrated robust talent EDiToriAl TEAm Vicki Synnott, in several directions. PAGE 15 Annemarie Hørsman Worlds Apart Photo: Jens Juncker-Jensen TrAnslATions Glen Garner DEsiGn Rasmus Koch Studio sTICKING ToGETHEr AD Morten C. Bak Nimbus Film had a major hand in producing the very first Dogme hit, The TYPE Cendia, Millton, Akzidenz-Grotesk Celebration. Today, as ever, the company stands for quality and professionalism. PAPEr Munken Lynx 100 g Meet the producers behind films like What No One Knows, Mifune and Dark PrinTED BY Schultz Grafisk circUlATion 5,000 Horse. PAGE 16 issn 1399-2813 coVEr Anders W. Berthelsen in IN iT FOR THE sPIRIT What No One Knows Søren Kragh-Jacobsen’s Final Cut Productions’ The Art of Crying by Peter Schønau Fog has made it Photo: Ole Kragh-Jacobsen around the world and taken home several awards. Now, the company is busy A Tale of Two Mozzies. Framegrab finishing Jan Troell’s Maria Larsson’s Everlasting Moment. FILM met with the small, ambitious production company for a talk about team spirit, ambition and FILM is published by the Danish Film Institute (DFI) prior to the festivals at Cannes, money. PAGE 20 Amsterdam and Berlin. HUmANITY UnDEr A MICROSCOPE All articles are written by freelance film critics and journalists. Everything Is Relative is a kaleidoscopic fusion of documentary sequences, archive material and tableau’s of human beings. It seeks to portray how our The Danish Film Institute is the national agency reactions to challenges in life are relative to the conditions that guide our responsible for supporting and encouraging film individual lives. PAGE 22 and cinema culture. The Institute’s operations extend from participation in the development and production of feature films, shorts and Everything Is Relative Photo: Manuel Claro CONTEnT AnD DISCONTEnT / ESSAY documentaries, over distribution and marketing, to managing the national film archive and the Steve Gravestock: The variety of Danish film production is wildly divergent, cinematheque. encompassing everything from gangster trilogies to domestic melodramas, Subscriptions: [email protected] romantic comedies to absurdist, sometimes anachronistic parables. The varied nature of the work may seem guaranteed to inspire intellectual vertigo, but there are central overriding motifs or concerns. PAGE 24 DANISH FILM INSTiTUTE GotherSGADE 55 nEWs DK-1123 COpENHAGEN K, DENMArK T +45 3374 3400 Simon Staho in Berlinale Special, Ole Bendtzen in Berlin Today, Zentropa and [email protected] / [email protected] Nordisk join forces, strong domestic market, new Dreyer website. PAGE 28 Italian for Beginners Photo: Lars Høgsted WHAT NO ONE KNOWS / SØREN KRAGH-JACOBSEN / PANORAMA SPECIAL / FILM#62 / PAGE 3 What No One Knows Photo: Ole Kragh-Jacobsen BY kim skoTTE The established auteur Lars von Trier and young, untested Thomas Vinterberg co-conceived Dogme 95, launching the “Vow of Chastity” in Paris, March DEMOCRACY 1995. But Dogme 95 had four founding members when the time came to put the manifesto to the test in actual film projects, and “The Four Dogme Brothers” soon became a household name in Denmark. The two other brothers were Kristian Levring, ISN’T FREE a relatively unknown director of TV commercials, With the selection of What No One Knows for Panorama special, søren kragh-Jacobsen and Søren Kragh-Jacobsen, a veteran filmmaker best may look back on a proud Berlin representation – counting an award for Rubber Tarzan known in Denmark for his sympathetic films for (1982), a Golden Bear nomination for The Island on Bird Street (1997) and a silver Bear children and young people. for Mifune (1999). With his new film, søren kragh-Jacobsen ventures into the thriller Early on, most people probably thought of format. A sharp comment on the political climate in Denmark, the film bears the Vinterberg, Levring and Kragh-Jacobsen as von director’s singular trademark: an antiauthoritarian approach to life and filmmaking. Trier’s stooges, a group alibi for the Danish bad-boy PAGE 4 / FILM#62 / WHAT NO ONE KNOWS / SØREN KRAGH-JACOBSEN / PANORAMA SPECIAL What No One Knows Photo: Ole Kragh-Jacobsen filmmaker’s crusade against a staid, overstuffed Europe – was no coincidence. His films all show a Danish government adverse to the notion of using cinematic tradition. That soon changed. fundamental, forthright joy in working in the film information obtained through torture. Nothing medium that is nothing if not infectious. Even his less than an earth-shaking political inversion of the lYricAl sTorYTEllEr dark films glow with a discreet, impregnable light standard Danish practice and mentality was pushed First, Vinterberg’s directorial debut, The Celebration, that seems to come from somewhere inside his through without any public debate or significant beat von Trier’s The Idiots at Cannes in 1998, winning humanist worldview. protestations. the Jury Prize and later becoming an international hit. You could say that his distinctive feel for credibly What should the role of the Danish military The next year brought a second wave of attack depicting children and young people reflects a be? How close should Denmark’s ties be to the from the Dogme brothers that was surprisingly sensitivity to innocence that has survived all his United States and its secret services? The “War on effective. Mifune, a Dogme film directed by Kragh- years in this cockamamie business, no matter how Terror”, in combination with exponentially growing Jacobsen, won a Silver Bear in Berlin. Mifune’s many knocks and blows it received. You always possibilities for monitoring the populace in the female lead, Iben Hjejle, won critical acclaim that come away with the sense that somewhere inside digital society, presents a democratic challenge propelled her into a starring role in Stephen Frears’ the seasoned filmmaker there is a longhaired kid some say ought to concern the country’s citizens adaptation of Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity. whistling a merry tune. and voters more than the ongoing struggle to save a In Denmark, Kragh-Jacobsen’s membership popular tax freeze. in the Dogme gang of four was met with A sENSITiVE mAn mAkEs A ToUGH FILM A conspicuously more authoritarian Danish mild astonishment. Not exactly known as an Perhaps that sounds like a pretty odd introduction society, with a beleaguered prime minister routinely experimental filmmaker, Kragh-Jacobsen was seen to the man who directed the new Danish, political playing the stern patriarch reasoning with his more as an empathic, lyrical storyteller, an actor’s thriller What No One Knows. Innocence will not get disobedient children, hardly seems like the kind director with a special talent for bringing out the you far in that dark maze of deadly intrigue! of development that would please the director of best in young actors. To be sure, while von Trier’s There is nothing naive or guileless about the What No One Knows. The Idiots set the Dogme standard for pure daring, chilling, tightly crafted story of a man, Thomas, Mifune was the most conventional of the first four who is whirled into a nasty affair involving a THE PRICE oF sEcURITY Dogme films.