Danish actress-writer-director Anne-Grethe Bjarup Riis’ feature debut, This Life [+see also:
trailer
interview: Anne Grethe Bjarup Riis
film profile] (photo), which sold 765,000 tickets domestically tobecome the largest local release in 2012, continues setting records: Riis and Danish producer Regner Grasten just received a platinum disc for 85,000 DVDs sold, which is slightly behind the statistics, since the film has in fact exceeded 140,000 copies, the best since Avatar [+see also:
trailer
film profile].

 

In the Danish cinemas This Life - scripted by Ib Kastrup, Jørgen Kastrup and Torvald Lervad, depicting patriotic resistance in the Danish province during World War II – will this year be second in the box office only to James Bond 007 in Skyfall [+see also:
film review
trailer
making of
film profile].

 

“And what’s the secret? Very simple. You make a film that gives the audiences an experience they can identify with – which makes their visit to the cinema important, and which will gather themaround the television set,” explained Grasten, who has packaged their next venture: Tarok – Dannebrog on Four Legs, scheduled to shoot from April 15 on locations in Copenhagen, Jutland and France.

 

The Danish Film Institute and Danish pubcaster DR are backing the biopic of Denmark’s most famous trotting horse, which won 111 races out of 156 between 1975-1980. On Tarok’s death, DRTV opened its news broadcast with the words: “Dannebrog on four legs is dead.”

 

“The message is, ‘Seize the dream while you can’ – or as the horse’s owner Karl Laursen said: ‘To have the will is the miracle of life’,” added Grasten, who has cast Bjarne Henriksen, Kirsten Lehfeldt, Henrik Vestergaard, Irene Donner, Thomas Ernst and Frederik Meldal Nørgaard in the leads. The red stallion will reach the local theatres on October 31.