Anders Thomas Jensen prepares new comedy with Mads Mikkelsen and Nikolaj Lie Kaas

Shooting began on 13 January for Anders Thomas Jensen's 'Riders of Justice', his and Zentropa's new comedy described as a modern fable about solidarity, the randomness of the universe and the meaning of life.

Jensen is both writer and director of the film, a story about the deployed military man Markus who has to go home to his teenage daughter, Mathilde, when his wife dies in a tragic train accident. It seems to be plain bad luck – until the mathematics geek Otto shows up with his two eccentric colleagues, Lennart and Emmenthaler. Otto was also a passenger on the wrecked train. He is convinced someone must have been behind it. As the clues pile up, it becomes clear to Markus that it might have been a carefully orchestrated assassination, which his wife ended up being a random casualty of. 

Anders Thomas Jensen

Mads Mikkelsen is Markus and Nikolaj Lie Kaas is Otto, playing alongside Nicolas Bro, all three prominently featured in Jensen's previous film, 'Men & Chicken' (2015). The cast includes Lars Brygmann ('That Time of Year', 2018), Roland Møller ('Land of Mine', 2015), Gustav Lindh ('Queen of Hearts, 2019) and upcoming talent Andrea Heick Gadeberg ('Daniel', 2019).

Jensen has written more than 30 feature films, including collaborations with directors Susanne Bier, Lone Scherfig, Nikolaj Arcel and Niels Arden Oplev. 'Riders of Justice' is Jensen's fifth feature film as director, after 'Flickering Lights' (2000), 'The Green Butchers' (2003), 'Adam’s Apples' (2005) and 'Men & Chicken' (2015).

'Riders of Justice' is produced by Sisse Graum Jørgensen and Sidsel Hybschmann for Zentropa. The film is co-produced by Film I Väst and Zentropa Sweden with support from the Danish Film Institute, FilmFyn, Nordisk Film & TV Fond, the Media Programme of the European Union, in collaboration with YouSee, TV 2 DENMARK, YLE and SVT. The total budget is at 5.3 million Euro. 

TrustNordisk handles international sales. Expected Danish release is December 2020.

Men & Chicken

Anders Thomas Jensen, 2015

Gabriel and Elias are brothers, but very different from one another. Gabriel is a worn down university professor and Elias is masturbating fulltime, he is a man, whose only concern is women and trivial knowledge. During a lecture Gabriel receives a phone call telling him that their father has died.

Adam's Apples

Anders Thomas Jensen, 2005

This comedy is a modern religious fable about belief and the struggle between good and evil. Adam, a neo-Nazi, is sent on community service to a vicarage. Here, the minister Ivan gives Adam the task of baking an apple pie with the apples from the tree growing in front of the church.

The Green Butchers

Anders Thomas Jensen, 2003

A comedy that combines the trite, the morbid and the amusing. Bjarne and Svend are pals. Svend has great ambition driven by an equally great inferiority complex, while Bjarne hardly cares about anything at all apart from Astrid, his girlfriend.

Flickering Lights

Anders Thomas Jensen, 2000

Torkild may be forty, but he's not past it, even though he is still in thrall to the Faeroe, a vicious, big-time crook from the Faroe Islands. And even though his own little gang of faithful buddies has a depressing tendency to fail at the jobs he plans for them. The four no-goods with their traumatic childhood memories have never really grown up, but their lives change when at last they find a hang-out - a deserted forest inn - where they are able to lead a different kind of life, the kind other people lead, and indeed paid for by other people's money.