Nordisk Film & TV Fond Backs Joachim Trier, Ole Bornedal, Yellow Bird

Jamie Lang

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Nordisk Film & TV Fond has announced three features, two series and a documentary set to receive $1.4m in financing, as well as distribution, dubbing and cultural initiative support recipients. Doing so, it highlights some of the key titles moving forward in the Nordic region.

Already backed by the Danish Film Institute’s largest ever grant of $2.4m, another $8.6m from Danish broadcaster TV2 and SF Studios, Ole Bornedal’s WWII drama “Shadows in My Eyes” will receive a further $333,000 from the Nordisk Film & TV Fond, cementing it as one of the country’s most ambitious features to date.

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In 1945, the Royal Air Force, intending to take out a Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen, mistakenly bombed a French school, killing several children and nuns. “Shadows in My Eyes” will focus on the contrast of innocence versus machines and the children whose lives were irrevocably changed through the tragic error.

Jonas Allen, Peter Bose at Miso Film Denmark produce the feature which will begin its seven week shoot in Prague and Copenhagen this autumn. Release is slated for late 2020.

In May, Paris-based MK2 Films boarded as co-producer and international sales agent on Joachim Trier’s closing chapter in the “Oslo Trilogy,” “The Worst Person in the World.”

Written by Eskil Vogt, “The Worst Person in the World” uses humor and drama to ask questions about love and meaning in modern day Oslo. It turns on Julie, a young woman struggling in her love life and career equally, forcing her to take a hard look in the mirror.

Renate Reinsve and Anders Danielsen Lie will star, both returning from the movie series’ previous entry “Oslo, August 31st,” a Cannes Un Certain Regard player. Thomas Robsahm for Oslo Pictures is producing with a budget of $5.6 million, bolstered by the Fond’s grant of $270,000.

Directed and written by Kajsa Næss and co-written with Per Schreiner, “Titina” will receive $390,000 from the Fond. An animated feature, “Titina” turns on two nobles and a lap dog on a dangerous quest to the North Pole. It’s described by the film’s Academy Award-winning producers Mikrofilm (“The Danish Poet”) as the “True-ish story” of Roald Amundsen’s mysterious death, Umberto Nobile’s disgrace and Titina, the first and thus far only lap dog to visit the North Pole.

In TV, “The Hunt for a Killer” is an upcoming crime series from director Mikael Marcimain and writers Helene Lindholm and Lotta Erikson, loosely based on the homonymous book by Tobias Bakman.

Produced by Marianne Gray and Helene Lindholm at Sweden’s Yellow Bird Film & TV for Swedish broadcaster SVT, the series is inspired one of the country’s largest-ever investigations, when, in 1989, a group of pedophiles were uncovered in central Hörby. The series will receive $255,000.

“Sprinter Galore,” commissioned by DR and TV2 Norway, is an animated sci-fi series from Danish production company Copenhagen Bombay and directors Lars Christiansen, Kristjan Møller.

Having lived for some time on earth, where he made a living as a superhero, the titular character Sprinter Galore returns home only to realize his people didn’t even notice he’d gone, until they need him and his superhero powers. The series is currently in storyboarding and animation, expected to release in January on DR Ramasjang.

The lone documentary backed in this round of funding, Kenneth Sorento’s “Declare Independence” is produced by Ulrik Gutkin at Copenhagen Film Company Kort & Doc.. It explores the tenuous balance between self-determination and nationalism, traditional culture and globalization.

The film is co-produced by Jørgen Chemnitz in Greenland and Benedikte Bredesen for FX Production Norway, and co-financed by DR, NRK, RUV, and Fritt Ord, with support from the Danish Film Institute. DR Sales handles world sales.

Additionally, the Nordisk Film & TV Fond will provide $600,000 in distribution support to storytelling for the Norwegian release of “Queen of Hearts,” (Denmark), “Sons of Denmark” (Denmark) and “Swoon” (Sweden); $190,000 to Netop Films to release “Valhalla” (Denmark) in Iceland as well as $100,000 of dubbing support; and $100,000 to Studio Show Entertainment to open “Out Stealing” (Norway) in Sweden.

$110,000 in cultural initiative support has also been awarded to the Nordic Kids Media Festival in Sweden. The three-day event is held to strengthen and educate attendees in an effort to elevate kids’ media content in Nordic countries.

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