Festen continues for Vinterberg as The Hunt is sold for French distribution

by Jorn Rossing Jensen

10/05/2012 - 14 years after his Dogme 1: Festen (The Celebration) (1998) won the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes International Film Festival, Danish director Thomas Vinterberg (pictured) returns as a Golden Palm contender with The Hunt, starring Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen, honoured for European Achievement in World Cinema 2011 by the European Film Academy.

Before unspooling on the Côte d’Azur, the drama with Susse Wold (her first film role in 26 years), Thomas Bo Larsen, Lars Ranthe and Anne Louise Hassing has been sold to Pretty Pictures for French distribution by Denmark’s TrustNordisk. “We are over the moon having acquired this film,” said Pretty Pictures President James Velaise.

Scripted by Vinterberg and Tobias Lindholm, with whom he also co-wrote his latest, Submarino [trailer, film focus] (2010) which received the Nordic Council Film Prize, The Hunt is the story of a 40-year-old man in a small provincial town, who has finally recovered from a tough divorce, found a new girlfriend and tries to re-establish his relationship with his teenage son.

It is Christmas time, when a five-year-old kindergartener drops a remark suggesting that he has abused her. Shortly, the little community finds itself in a collective state of hysteria. “I am enormously proud for Tobias, the film and myself to have slipped through the film world’s perhaps smallest needle eye to the competition in Cannes,” said Vinterberg.

The €2.7 million feature, backed by the Danish Film Institute, was produced by Sisse Graum Jørgensen and Morten Kaufmann for Zentropa Entertainments, with Zentropa Sweden/Trollhättan Film Sweden and Swedish regional film centre, Film i Väst. The first Danish-language film in competition at Cannes for 14 years will be released domestically by Nordisk Film A/S on January 10, 2013.