07/01/2010

Susanne Bier’s new film Civilization (whose original title Hævnen literally means “Revenge”) has been accused by the Sudanese government of being “anti-Islamic”, just like Kurt Westergaard’s controversial Mohammed cartoons published in Danish daily paper Jyllands-Posten in 2005.

The new controversy arises as Westergaard is recovering from a failed attempt on his life made by an Islamic extremist last week. This summer, world renowned Danish filmmaker Bier started filming her new, Danish-language film Civilization, starring Trine Dyrholm, Ulrich Thomsen and Michael Persbrandt. Shot in Kenya and Denmark, the film features a refugee camp in Sudan’s Darfur region as a backdrop to a family drama. The director co-wrote the script with Anders Thomas Jensen, who co-penned Bier’s 2004 hit Brothers [+see also:
trailer
film profile], set against the war in Afghanistan.

In a statement to the Sudanese news agency Suna on Tuesday, Muawiya Osman Khalid, spokesperson for Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, accused Civilization of being racist and offensive to Islam, very much like Westergaard’s Mohammed cartoons and the Dutch film Fitna by right-wing politician Geert Wilder. For the Sudanese government, the film presents “non-existing conditions in Darfur” and is a “new step in the hostile forces working to prolong the war in Darfur”.

Civilization is produced by Sisse Gram Jørgensen for Danish powerhouse Zentropa. In an official statement, the company’s CEO, Peter Aalbæk Jensen, vehemently protested the Sudanese government’s accusations. He stressed that Zentropa is among the few companies in Scandinavia that staff Muslim filmmakers, and that the company has produced several nuanced and personal films describing the Muslim world “in the most respectable way”.

Civilization is scheduled to open in Denmark in August 2010.