Toronto International Film Festival has added two Danish films to the lineup.
Susanne Bier's romance "Love Is All You Need" has been awarded a Special Presentation, and Tobias Lindholm's "A Hijacking" has been selected for Contemporary World Cinema.
Both films will enjoy their world premiere at the Venice Film Festival (29 August-8 September), a week before their North American premiere at Toronto (6-16 September).
Already in place at TIFF are Nikolaj Arcel's "A Royal Affair", Thomas Vinterberg's "The Hunt" and Joshua Oppenheimer's "The Act of Killing".
Furthermore, Danish director Mahdi Fleifel's British-Lebanese production "A World Not Ours" is selected for TIFF DOC.
Love Is All You Need
"Love Is All You Need" is a new film by Oscar winner Susanne Bier starring Pierce Brosnan and Trine Dyrholm. The film tells the story of the wondrous unpredictability of life: Just when you think it's all over, it may have only just begun.
Ida has had a rough year. She has gone through chemotherapy and just found out that her husband is cheating on her with a beautiful blond from accounting. On the way to her daughter's wedding in Italy, Ida accidently backs up into a car which belongs to Philip, a wealthy businessman and the father of her soon-to-be son-in-law. As the two families finally gather in a beautiful old Italian villa set in the middle of an idyllic lemon grove, everyone is expecting a romantic wedding planned down to the very last detail. They couldn't have been more wrong.
The story is created by Susanne Bier and Bier's long-time collaborator Anders Thomas Jensen. The duo was also responsible for the screenplay for Bier's 2011 Oscar triumph "In a Better World".
"Love Is All You Need" is produced by Vibeke Windeløv and Sisse Graum Jørgensen for Zentropa with support from The Danish Film Institute. TrustNordisk handles international sales.
The film will have its world premiere at Venice Film Festival where it will be showcased out of competition in the official programme. Domestic release is set for 6 September.
Read interview A True Romantic
A Hijacking
Pilou Asbæk in "A Hijacking". Photo: Magnus Nordenhof Jønck
Tobias Lindholm made his directorial debut with the hard-hitting prison drama "R" (co-directed with Michael Noer, 2010). Over the last few years, he has carved out a name for himself as a screenwriter on Thomas Vinterberg's films, including this year's Cannes winner "The Hunt", and the international hit TV series "Borgen". "A Hijacking" is Lindholm's second feature, with a screenplay by the director.
Featuring Pilou Asbæk and Søren Malling, best known to international audiences from "Borgen", the film takes us to the cargo ship MV Rozen in The Indian Ocean which is heading for harbour when it is hijacked by Somali pirates. Amongst the men on board are the ship’s cook Mikkel (Pilou Asbæk) and the engineer Jan (Roland Møller), who along with the rest of the seamen are taken hostage in a cynical game of life and death. With the demand for a ransom of millions of dollars a psychological drama unfolds between the CEO of the shipping company (Søren Malling) and the Somali pirates.
"A Hijacking" was made according to the same principle of authenticity as Lindholm's debut feature "R" which was actually filmed in a prison with a cast mostly of real guards and ex-convicts. The shooting took place in all secrecy in The Indian Ocean in piracy-prone waters on a freighter that was hijacked once in real life, with a cast including a professional hostage negotiator in a leading role.
"A Hijacking" is produced by Tomas Radoor and René Ezra for Nordisk Film with support from the Danish Film Institute, the national broadcaster DR and NFTF. TrustNordisk handles international sales.
The film will have its world premiere at Venice Film Festival in the Orizzonti section. Domestic release is set for 20 September.
Read interview If I Told You I Saw a Cow …
A World Not Ours
Mahdi Fleifel's documentary "A World Not Ours" tells the story of multiple generations in exile in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain El-Helwe in Lebanon. Mahdi spent his formative years in the camp in the 1980s before his family settled in Denmark. For years, he's been returning to the camp and keeping a video diary.
"A World Not Ours" is directed by Mahdi Fleifel and produced by Patrick Campbell for British Nakba FilmWork.
Tine Grew Pfeiffer in Producer's Lab
Danish producer Tine Grew Pfeiffer from Alphaville Pictures Copenhagen has been selected to participate in the networking platfporm Producers Lab Toronto 2012, where 12 European and 12 Canadian hand-picked producers will be looking for co-production partners. The event, organised by European Film Promotion, is set to launch during the Toronto International Film Festival from September 5 to 8, 2012.
A graduate of the National Film School of Denmark's Producing Programme, Tine Grew Pfeiffer founded the production company Alphaville Pictures Copenhagen along with director Christoffer Boe after working on their first feature "Reconstruction", which won the Camera d'Or in Cannes in 2003. Since then, Pfeiffer and Boe have collaborated on another five features – "Allegro", "Offscreen", "Everything Will Be Fine", "Beast", and "Spies & Glistrup". Pfeiffer executive produced Birgitte Stærmose's short "Out Of Love" and her feature debut "Room 304" as well as Michael Noer's short "Hawaii". Pfeiffer is currently developing Alphaville's first English language projects "The Expatriate" and "Memories Are Made of This".
Toronto International Film Festival
Every year, 300.000 guests attend TIFF, which makes it the leading public film festival in North America.
This year, the festival runs from 6-16 September.
In addition to the five Danish films "Love Is All You Need", "A Hijacking", "A Royal Affair", "The Hunt" and "The Act of Killing", two Danish minor co-productions are selected for the Special Presentation programme: Norwegian "Kon-tiki", directed by Espen Sandberg and Joachim Rønning and co-produced by Henrik Zein and Henrik Zein and Lena Haugaard for Nordisk Film, and British "Ginger and Rosa", directed by Sally Potter and co-produced by Jonas Allen and Peter Bose for Miso Film.