08/11/2012 - After Marie Krøyer - his first Danish feature in 25 years - Danish director Bille August returns to international filmmaking for Germany's Inuit Pictures

Danish Oscar-winning director Bille August (photo), whose first Danish feature in 25 years, Marie Krøyer [+see also:
trailer
film profile], has reached 262,608 domestic admissions (as of November 4) for SF Film, returns to international film-making for a new adaption of Russian author Vladimir Nabokov's Laughter in the Dark.

August most recently directed Night Train to Lisbon [+see also:
film review
trailer
making of
film profile], a romantic thriller from Swiss author Pascal Mercier's best-selling novel, starring Jack Huston, Martina Gedeck and Tom Courtenay for Germany's Studio Hamburg FilmProduktion. The film has been scheduled for a February 28 launch in Germany.

Published in 1932, Laughter in the Dark depicts the affection of a middle-aged art critic for a 16-year-old aspiring actress and their mutually parasitic relationship. Nabokov used the theme again in Lolita (1955), filmed twice by US director Stanley Kubrick (1962) and UK director Adrian Lyne (1997) and in Ada: A Family Chronicle (1969).

Adapted once (1969) by UK director Tony Richardson, with Anna Karina, Nicol Williamson and Peter Bowles in the leads, the new version will be scripted by South African writer Greg Latter, who worked with August on Night Train to Lisbon and on his award-winning Goodbye Bafana [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2007).

Laughter in the Dark will be staged by Hungarian-German actor-director-turned producer Sandor Söth for his Berlin-based production company Intuit Pictures, with principal photography slated for the second half of 2013. August's Pelle the Conqueror was awarded the Oscar for Best Foreign-Language Feature in 1989.