Lars von Trier producer creates own company
by Annika Pham
Meta Louise Foldager, producer of Lars von Trier’s Antichrist [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Lars von Trier
film profile] and the upcoming Melancholia, has founded her own company, Meta Film.
After five years spent at Zentropa, where she produced 12 feature films, the 36-year-old producer is leaving the major Scandinavian powerhouse to gain control of her creative choices and have the freedom to work with other Danish and international co-production partners.
Supported at Meta Film by producer Sara Namer, she will work with established and first-time directors on projects with international potential. Her idea is to take total control of the creative process and package her projects with ground financing from Scandinavia to then present them to financiers and co-production partners.
Conversely, she will co-produce major international projects such as Michael Winterbottom’s The Promised Land, produced by Revolution Films. The political thriller set against the lead-up to the 1948 partition of Palestine and the creation of Israel stars Colin Firth and Matthew Macfadyen. Filming in Israel will start in March 2011.
In Scandinavia, Zentropa will remain Foldager’s “top customer” and she says will continue to work on von Trier’s films “on a pre-emptive basis”, along with Louise Vesth. Projects she is handling for them include Melancholia (ready by Cannes 2011); Rebounce by Danish director Heidi Maria Faist (The Blessing), set to open domestically in March 2011; and Nikolaj Arcel’s A Royal Affair, currently in pre-production.
Foldager is also acting as creative producer for Zentropa on the English-language TV series Babylon, directed by Olivier Hirschbiegel (Downfall [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Bernd Eichinger
interview: Joachim Fest
interview: Oliver Hirschbiegel
film profile]) and based on a script by Anders Rønnow Klarlund (Strings [+see also:
trailer
film profile]). The 12X40 minute series co-produced with Ireland (David Collins) is a “Euro-noir” set in Brussels. Shooting will start early 2012.
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