Danish films in Moscow

INTERNATIONAL. The legendary theatre 35mm in Moscow is hosting the third Danish Wave festival offering a programme with highlights from comtemporary Danish cinema. For the last decade Russia has seen an increasing interest in Danish films.

Danish Wave is a recurring Danish festival which has built up a keen audience in the Russian capital.

The festival, this year coinciding with the royal Danish family's visit to Moscow and St Petersburg, opened Wednesday with the Crown Prince welcoming the audience to a special gala screening of Martin P. Zandvliet's "A Funny Man".

moskva1_450 Crown Prince Frederik and actor in "A Funny Man" Lars Ranthe at the opening gala on Wednesday. Photo: Harut Muradian

Danish Wave 3 runs through to 12 September and offers a programme of five films by contemporary filmmakers: Nikolaj Arcel's "Truth About Men", Christoffer Boe's "Everything will Be Fine", Pernille Fischer Christensen's "A Family", Mads Brügger's "The Red Chapel" and the Greenlandic film "Nuummioq" by Torben Bech and Otto Rosing.

The Moscow audience will also have the opportunity to discover a classic of Danish cinema, "Day of Wrath" by Carl Theodor Dreyer.

Von Trier holds a special status 

Especially the Dogma Wave has sparked interest among Russians for Danish cinema over the past decade. Not least two of Dogma's founding fathers, Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg, have enjoyed great popularity among Russian cinephiles.

On 7 July "Melancholia" released broadly in Russia after its gala premiere at the Moscow International Film Festival. Tickets for the opening screening at the gigantic October theatre were sold out within an hour, the Russian TV and radio host Anton Dolin reported at the time, comparing von Trier's love for Andrei Tarkovsky with the Russian audience's "irrational love" for von Trier.

Regarding von Trier's upcoming film "Nymphomiac" TrustNordisk reports that the Russian distributor Central Partnership has picked up the rights to the film, even before the offical presales have started.

Antihero on Russian screens in December

Evidence of Danish films travelling well to Russia also comes from Tine Klint, head of the growing independent sales agent LevelK, who has sold "Ronal the Barbarian" for release on 1 December in 150 theatres throughout Russia.

"It's big for us to have such a large-scale opening in Russia," says Tine Klint. "We have more in common with Russian audiences than we think," Tine Klint says about this keen interest in "Ronal the Barbarian", an animated feature comically parodying the stereotypes in action adventure film.

"My experience is that we share the same skewed sense of humour and a love for the absurd, and that we love making fun of authorities."

About Danish Wave 3

Danish Wave 3 is organised as a collaboration between the Danish Film Institute, the Danish Embassy in Moscow and the Russian distributor Cool Connections. In connection with the festival Danish and Russian filmmakers will be attending various workshops. 

Full programme at kino35mm.ru

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