14/07/2014 - The Danish director's feature debut is based on the real life of a Danish botanist on the African Gold Coast in the 1830s

Danish director Daniel Dencik, whose Tal R: The Virgin won the Danish Film Academy's Robert for Best Short Documentary (and was just on show at Karlovy Vary), will next month start principal photography for his first feature, Gold Coast [+see also:
trailer
interview: Daniel Dencik
film profile], on location in Ghana.

Dencik, who earlier this year received the Nordisk Film Prize, has himself scripted the story, set in 1836 in the Danish possessions in Guinea, after the slave trade officially ended. Partly based on Danish botanist Wulff Joseph Wulff's letters and diaries, it follows Wulff's adventures after he arrives – by invitation from the Danish King – “to make African soil flourish with coffee trees”.

But nothing goes as planned: Wulff witnesses hundreds of slaves illegally shipped away, while his plantations are destroyed. With the help of a young slave girl, he finds out that the local Ashanti tribe is against him and involved in a major conspiracy.

Norwegian actor Jakob Oftebro (Kon-Tiki [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]), who has recently appeared in several Danish films (On the Edge [+see also:
trailer
interview: Danica Curcic
interview: Jakob Oftebro
film profile], When Animals Dream [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jonas Alexander Arnby
film profile], The Shamer's Daughter) and television series (Heartless, 1864), will play the lead in a cast including Danica Curcic, Anders Heinrichsen, Adam Ild Rohweder and Morten Holst. Michael Haslund-Christensen will produce for Haslund/Dencik Entertainment, and SF Film will release the title on 2 July 2015.

Also an editor, Swedish-born Dencik made his first documentary, Moon Rider, in 2012. His The Expedition to the End of the World [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (2013, also produced by Haslund-Christensen) was selected at more than 70 international film festivals and collected several awards.