16/01/2014 - New films include two from Norway (Pyromaniac, The Smuggler), one from Denmark (Astrid) and one from Finland (The Last One)

Twice awarded at the Berlinale – in 2006 for Best Debut and the Jury Grand Prix (A Soap [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Lars Bredo Rahbek
interview: Pernille Fischer Christensen
film profile]) and in 2010 the FIPRESCI critics’ prize (A Family [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]) – Danish director Pernille Fischer Christensen’s new film Astrid is among the 39 new projects from 30 countries, which will be presented at the 11th Berlinale Co-Production Market between February 9–11.

While Christensen’s latest feature, Someone You Love, starring Mikael Persbrandt and Trine Dyrholm, is still waiting for its local April 24 premiere, she is preparing Astrid (also scripted by Kim Fupz Aakeson), about an elderly, world famous author who loses her grown-up son, which will be shot in winter 2014/spring 2015.

She is young, unmarried and pregnant, when she has to leave her childhood home in Småland and go to Copenhagen, where she leaves him with a foster family. The film is loosely based on the true story of Swedish bestselling author Astrid Lindgren (Pippi Longstocking), and will be produced by Lars G Lindström and Tomas Radoor for Nordisk Film Production Sweden/Denmark.

Also part of the presentation, Norwegian director Erik Skjoldbjærg, whose Pioneer [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2013) was introduced at the Co-Production Market, will present Pyromaniac, from Bjørn Olaf Johannessen’s script based on a novel by Gaute Heivoll, about an arsonist in a peaceful village in the late 1970s, who appears to be a local fireman.

After Babycall [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2011), the Noomi Rapace starrer, Norwegian director Pål Sletaune will embark on The Smuggler, a 1920’s gangster drama from Arthur More’s novel, about one of Norway’s most infamous smugglers and wanted criminals. Aksel Hennie will star in the €5,8 million production from Norway’s 4½.

Market selections include Estonian director Veiko Õunpuu’s The Last One, from Finnish Bufo Film; Swedish producer Andreas Emanuelsson’s The Garbage Helicopter and Icelandic director Ása Hjörleifsdóttir’s The Swan, bothin the Talent Project Market. Danish production company, Space Rocket Nation, owned by producer Lene Børglum and director Nicolas Winding Refn – which most recently signed Refn’s Only God Forgives [+see also:
film review
trailer
making of
interview: Nicolas Winding Refn
film profile] – has been chosen for the Company Matching programme.