20/01/2010

Danish film R [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by first-time filmmakers Michael Noer and Tobias Lindholm will vie for the VPRO Tiger Awards as it spearheads the line-up of Nordic films selected for the 39th Rotterdam International Film Festival (January 27-February 7).

R was jointly written and directed by Noer and Lindholm, former graduates of the Danish Film School, where the former studied documentary filmmaking and the latter screenwriting. In this anthropological study of life in a Danish prison, up-and-coming actor Pilou Asbæk (discovered in Worlds Apart [+see also:
trailer
film profile]) plays R, who has been sentenced to jail for violence.

The film was produced by René Ezra and Tomas Radoor for Nordisk Film, as part of the Danish Film Institute’s New Danish Screen production scheme. TrustNordisk is handling world sales.

Also in the running for the Tiger is Estonian film The Temptation of St. Tony [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Veiko Õunpuu, co-produced by Finland’s Bronson Club and Sweden’s Atmo.

Other Nordic films screening in Rotterdam include Óskar Jónasson’s Reykjavik Rotterdam [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Iceland) and Nicolas Winding Refn's Valhalla Rising [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Nicolas Winding Refn
film profile] (Denmark), showcased in the Spectrum sidebar.

Finnish family drama Twisted Roots [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Saara Saarela, and Jesper Ganslandt's Swedish film The Ape [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] are both screening as part of Rotterdam’s Bright Future section for promising new filmmakers.