As is often the case when an English-language film has been made with Danish money, there are plenty of curiosities in this year’s Robert nominations – the film industry’s equivalent to the Oscars, which vie for prominence in competition with the Bodils, the film critic awards often compared to the Golden Globes.
Stiff competition
American actor Matt Dillon has been nominated as best actor for ‘The House That Jack Built’ – his first and probably last nomination for the film – and he will face stiff competition (sorry) from Baard Owe for ‘Christian IV – Den sidste rejse’, who died in November 2017 aged 81.
Unsurprisingly, given that director Lars von Trier’s films always get Robert nominations, ‘The House That Jack Built’ has been shortlisted for best film along with ‘Ditte & Louise’, ‘Journal 64’, ‘Lykke Per’ and ‘Den Skyldige’.
Everyone got nominated
‘Lykke Per’ got the most nominations with 16, followed by ‘The House That Jack Built’ on 12, and it’s curious to note that 27 films have nominations – so pretty much every Danish film released in 2018.
This is because ten of them picked up a solitary nomination for the Blockbuster Audience Award. The decision to recognise them means ten distinctly average films can crow about being Robert-nominated, including verifiable turkey ‘Backstabbing for Beginners’.
CPH POST name dropping
Meanwhile, eagle-eyed CPH POST readers might spot that regular That Theatre collaborator Adam Brix, who appeared alongside Ian Burns in ‘The Zoo Story’ in 2011 along with several other plays, has been nominated for best supporting actor for ‘Ditte & Louise’.
Johanne Algren, the former wife of CPH POST co-founder Thomas Dalvang Fleurquin, Mr Distortion himself, has been nominated for best original screenplay alongside Isabella Eklöf for her script for ‘Holiday’.
And finally, Sabine Hviid, the wife of sometime CPH POST reviewer Mark Walker, has received her umpteenth nomination for best set design for her work on ‘Vildheks’. In fact, should she win, it will be her third on the trot.
Danish novelist inspired by her estranged American father
‘Lone Star’, the sixth book from Mathilde Walter Clark, 48, whose mother is Danish and father American, has been shortlisted for the 2019 DR Romanprisen. The book is inspired by Clark’s relationship with her biological father. Born and bred in Denmark, Clark only ever saw him during his short visits to Copenhagen and her summer holidays, but her stepmother started putting pressure on her father to cut ties. The result was a road trip around Texas.
Von Trier to revive ‘The Kingdom’, providing it’s not crap like ‘Twin Peaks’
‘The Kingdom’, the 1990s TV series directed by Lars von Trier, could be revived, reports Euroman. Currently consisting of eight episodes screened in 1994 and 1997, the Dane had planned to make 13, but then got distracted by his burgeoning film career – for example, Breaking the Waves in 1996 and ‘Idioterne’ (‘The Idiots’) in 1998. Von Trier recently took a tour of Rigshospitalet for inspirational purposes, cautioning that he did not want to “emulate David Lynch’s recent attempts at ending ‘Twin Peaks’, which ended up as a damp squib”.
Municipality withdrawing support for major film about HC Andersen
Odense Municipality is withdrawing 4 million kroner in support for a film about the life of Hans Christen Andersen, a project led by Zentropa with Chinese support. Apparently the withdrawal is a major blow that has led to the film, provisionally entitled ‘My Best Friend Andersen’, being postponed indefinitely. Under the terms of the contract agreed with the municipality, filming should have started by June 1 last year, but there were actor availability and script issues. The municipality had already handed 1 million kroner over to Zentropa, which now be paid back.
Life imitating art on the set of DR crime series
The cast of the new DR1 crime series ‘Bedrag’ have been talking to the national broadcaster about how life imitated art whilst they were filming in Nørrebro during the 2017 Copenhagen Gang War. According to actor Thomas Hwan, the crew filmed a shooting on a street and then learned that an actual shooting had taken place on the opposite side of the road the very next day.
