15/01/2013 - "It is almost unnatural," said a film top exec about Danish director Thomas Vinterberg's award-winning drama, which reached Denmark eight months after it was launched at Cannes

Danish director Thomas Vinterberg's The Hunt [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Thomas Vinterberg
interview: Thomas Vinterberg
film profile], which was domestically released last week (January 10) - almost eight months after it was launched at Cannes to win three awards - reached 119,349 admissions during its first weekend (on 119 screens), the second-best result in the 2000s (after Clown - The Movie [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2010)). Including previews, it stood at 133,576.

"Cannes was a fantastic experience, but not so important as the film's meeting with its home audience. I have looked forward to it, slightly nervous, now I am really proud," said Vinterberg. "We could never have imagined it would open that big," added producers Morten Kauffman and Sisse Graum Jørgensen, of Zentropa Entertainments.

"It is almost unnatural that a Danish contemporary drama, dealing with such a serious subject, can pull such a crowd in its first weekend, to match an American blockbuster," said managing director Jan Lehmann, of local distributor Nordisk Film Biografdistribution. "The Hunt will most likely do better than Vinterberg's own The Celebration/Festen, which took 403,000 admissions domestically."

Meanwhile Mikkelsen, who won for Best Actor in Cannes, but missed the European Film Award for his performance - instead the film received it for Best Original Screenplay (Vinterberg, Tobias Lindholm) - will next go bear-hunting at the upcoming Berlin International Film Festival (between February 7-17).

His most recent US thriller, Fredrik Bond's The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman, where he co-stars with Shia LeBeouf and Evan Rachel Wood, has been selected for the main competition, where the top prize is the Golden Bear.

The film will also show at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, between Febraury 17-27.