The Danish director Martin Zandvliet – known for the Danish films ‘Dirch’ and ‘Applaus’ – has been hired to direct a film portraying the tragedy aboard the Russian nuclear submarine K-141 Kursk, which sank in the Barents Sea 15 years ago killing all 118 of its crew.
It will be the 44-year-old’s first English-language film.
The manuscript has been developed by Robert Rodat, a 1999 Oscar nominee for best original screenplay for ‘Saving Private Ryan’, based on the Robert Moore book ‘A Time to Die’ detailing the Kursk tragedy.
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Tragedy on the high seas
The Kursk sank in 2000 during a naval exercise following a failed torpedo launch that led to a large explosion.
Some 23 sailors who survived the initial blast eventually succumbed to oxygen deprivation while the Russian government rejected international assistance from Norwegian and British experts for five days.
Meanwhile, Zandvliet’s latest film ‘Land of Mine’, about a group of German prisoners-of-war who are ordered to remove their own landmines on the west coast of Jutland following the Second World War, has been chosen for the Toronto Film Festival next month.
