Fabik serves up Yesterday’s News: Romcom in which focus is food

by Jorn Rossing Jensen

27/09/2011 - Food – and the secrets of food – is one of the main ingredients in Swedish director Teresa Fabik’s Yesterday’s News (pictured), the screen adaption of Swedish author Kajsa Ingemarsson’s best-seller which has begun principal photography at the Swedish regional film centre, Film i Väst, in Trollhättan.

Swedish actress Rakel Wärmländer stars in this romantic comedy about a 29-year-old girl Agnes who loses her job in Le Bateau Bleu, a Michelin Guide restaurant, at the same time as her boyfriend leaves her for a 21-year-old singer. She seeks refuge in the provincial town of Länninge, in everyday routines and her mother’s cooking, until one day she receives a telephone call.

Josephine Bornebusch plays Agnes’s best friend in the romantic comedy, where she performs alongside Tomas von Brömssen, Anki Lidén, Johan Rabaeus, Sverrir Gudnason, Eric Ericson and Richard Ulfsäter. Ella Lemhagen and Lars Johansson scripted Ingemarsson’s novel, which has sold 750,000 copies in Sweden and been translated into eight languages; Fabik previously directed the award-winning Princess (2009) and The Ketchup Effect (2004).

Swedish producer Pontus Sjöman, who has described the film as Bridget Jones's Diary meets Rattatouille in the visual style of Amélie, will realise the depiction of Agnes who eventually opens an restaurant and finds herself through gourmet cooking. His Tre Vänner Produktion is packaged by Nordisk Film Production AB, with support from Film i Väst, Swedish public broadcaster SVT and Canal+. Simon Weinberg – chef at Stockholm’s famous Operakällaren – has been signed as a consultant. The premiere is due for 2013.