15/09/2011

As one of the few filmmakers in the world who has won the Golden Palm, Golden Globe and Oscar for the same film, Danish director Bille August’s Pelle the Conqueror (1987), Danish producer Per Holst is just missing a Finnish title to complete his all-Scandinavian line-up of new productions.

At the new Nordic Films market during the Norwegian International Film Festival in Haugesund last month, Holst – who recently hired Danish producer Michael Bille Frandsen as a partner in his company, Asta Film ApS – introduced Swedish director Lisa Ohlin’s new feature, Simon and The Oaks, which will be domestically released by Nordisk Film A/S on December 9.

Starring Bill Skarsgård [pictured], Helen Sjöholm, Stefan Gödicke and Jonathan Wächter, the screen adaptation of Marianne Frederiksson’s best-selling novel was produced with Sweden’s Götafilm AB, and Germany’s Schmidtz Katze Filmkollektiv GmbH. Set in the 1940s, it follows an adopted Swedish country boy who believes that he is 'different', as he searches for his true self.

In Denmark earlier this year, Holst launched Danish director Lotte Svendsen’s Max Embarrassing 2, the second installment of the family comedy franchise, originally a spin-off from a popular television series. While packaging a third sequel, also from Svendsen, he is also preparing a new feature from Danish director Nicolo Donato, of Brotherhood [+see also:
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Interview Nicolo Donato [IT]
interview: Nicolo Donato
film profile] fame.

Danish director Michael Hegner will realise a fully-animated version of How Tom and Esther Saved the World, from German author Jens Maria Mertz’s original screenplay. In Haugesund, Holst signed to join Norwegian producer Axel Helgeland’s Two Lives, the first Norwegian-German co-production in 34 years, which Germany’s Georg Maas will direct.

Asta Film’s new partner, who was producer on Max Embarrassing 2, Bille Frandsen had his first job with Holst when he was 18. He has most recently been attached to Danish public broadcaster DR-TV, where he signed – among others – the Emmy-winning The Eagle thriller series.