05/04/2016 - Starring Søren Malling and Bodil Jørgensen, the Danish actor-turned-director’s first feature will shortly be premiered at New York’s Tribeca Film Festival

After three shorts, Danish writer-actor-director Christian Tafdrup – who received the Danish Film Academy’s Robert for Best Supporting Actor in 2014 for his performance in Danish pubcaster DR’s Borgen TV series – will premiere his first feature, Parents [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Elliott Crosset Hove
film profile], at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York between 13 and 24 April.

Backed by the Danish Film Institute’s New Danish Screen special talent scheme, the “arthouse drama told with Nordic deadpan humour and a hint of surrealism, with both identity and existentialistic themes” was produced by Thomas Heinesen for Nordisk Film Production. Nordisk will handle the domestic release, while Danish international sales outfit LevelK is in charge of its foreign distribution.

“In my writing and directing, I always draw upon my own personal life and experiences,” Tafdrup explained. “The inspiration for Parents comes from a dream I had several years ago, about my own parents moving into their pre-parenthood apartment. It made me curious to explore the human need to relive and take control of your past – a state of mind I find quite universal.”

A cast of experienced (Søren Malling and Bodil Jørgensen) and young, up-and-coming actors (Elliott Crosset Hove, Miri Ann Beuschel and Anton Honik) depicts the story of a middle-aged Danish couple whose son Esben is moving away from home. Left with a feeling of needlessness, they try to rekindle the magical sparks of their younger days, returning to their old student apartment where they first fell in love. But recapturing their youth changes them in unexpected ways, and when one morning they wake up feeling 30 years younger, they are forced to come to terms with the fact that the past they once knew might no longer exist.

Tafdrup, Heinesen, editor Anne Østerup, and actors Beuschel and Honik will attend the world premiere at Robert De Niro’s festival on 15 April.