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BERLINALE 2014 Berlinale Special

Berlinale: Someone You Love, a rock star discovers love

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- Director Pernille Fischer Christensen returns to the Berlinale for the third time with an intense family drama after her success with A Soap and A Family

Berlinale: Someone You Love, a rock star discovers love

Already the recipient of a Silver Bear and a Grand Jury Prize in Berlin in 2006 for her debut, A Soap [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Lars Bredo Rahbek
interview: Pernille Fischer Christensen
film profile
]
, as well as a FIPRESCI award for her second film, A Family [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, also at the Berlinale, Danish Pernille Fischer Christensen is returning to the festival for a third time in the Berlinale Special section with Someone You Love [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
.

In her fourth film, the director is once more putting an intense, elegant and minimalistic family drama on screen, centred round the construction of an unexpected relationship between grandfather and grandson. 

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In a rather common story for its premises, the filmmaker and well-respected Danish screenwriter Kim Fupz Aakeson (who is also competing at the festival with In Order of Disappearance [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Hans Petter Moland
film profile
]
by Norwegian Hans-Petter Moland) have inserted unexpected details: the grandfather is called Thomas Jacob (Mikael Persbrandt), he lives in Los Angeles, and he is a rock star. Thomas has sacrificed everything for music, including emotional ties. He lives alone and has just a few acquaintances, including his manager  (British Eve Best) and producer (local star Trine Dyrhom).

In Denmark for the taping of a new record, Thomas receives a visitor under the form of his daughter Julie (Birgitte Hjort Sørensen, In Order of Disappearance), accompanied by her son, Noah. The father and daughter have never had a relationship. The woman limits interactions to requests for money. The father never goes beyond giving her what she has asked for. Julie is a drug addict and has to spend a few weeks in rehab. Thomas is forced to take care of his grandson, something he is clearly uncomfortable with. 

The screenplay slowly tells the story of an aged rock star in a castle over the course of a harsh winter: the plot’s midway turn happens without surprise revealing the evolution of human relations with affection developing between grandfather and grandson. 

The same opaque and grey palette of the Danish countryside (the film was shot on the Island of Fionia) evokes the winter in Thomas’ heart, which will slowly force him to make space (even if a little) for a piece of family, set to disrupt his solitude. Old-age revisiting youth’s errors is another important theme: Thomas sees the same passion he had for music in Noah and undergoes deep internal work leading him to change his selfish ways.   

Produced by Sisse Graum Jørgensen and Vinca Wiedemann for Zentropa Entertainment, in co-production with Swedes Zentropa International Sweden, FilmFyn and Film I Väst and with support from the Danish Film Institute, Swedish Film Institute, Nordic Film & Television Fund and the MEDIA programme, Someone to Love is being sold by TrustNordisk.

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(Translated from Italian)

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