Discoveries from Denmark World Cinema

A feature length documentary about fourteen year old Thomas, a psychotic and severely mentally handicapped young boy.

Director Jessen lives with his sons Fritz and Jørgen in a country house on the coast of Øresund. One day, Jessen announces that his boss is coming to visit from Australia, and that he will bring along his daughter, Alice. Jessen further proclaims that he wants one of his sons to marry Alice. Full of prejudice against Australians, Fritz and Jørgen end up drawing lots to determine who must accept this terrible fate. Upon arriving in Denmark, Alice decides to send her friend Elsie ahead to the country house to take the measure of the two fellows and report back to her. She pretends to be Alice, and to complicate things further, Fritz and Jørgen have in the meantime hired two strange vagabonds, Pat and Patachon, to pretend to be them, hoping that this will make her turn around and leave immediately. (Stumfilm. dk)

Orphan Pip discovers through lawyer Mr. Jaggers that a mysterious benefactor wishes to ensure that he becomes a gentleman. Reunited with his childhood patron, Miss Havisham, and his first love, the beautiful but emotionally cold Estella, he discovers that the elderly spinster has gone mad from having been left at the altar as a young woman, and has made her charge into a warped, unfeeling heartbreaker.

Fueled by his obsession with the past, Frank instigates a manhunt to find his former henchman Rob.

Gaston Vandermeerssche is a young, resourceful Flemish action hero of the Belgian resistance during World War II: he coaches surviving allied pilots trough occupied Belgium and France to Spain so they can regain England, each time a dangerous adventure as their poor mastery of local languages and customs add to the ever-present risks of trying to outsmart the Nazi troops and Gestapo agents. After a mess-up in the coordination from London he himself gets caught by the dreaded secret police for ruthless interrogation...

Anne is a girl with a serious passion for superheroes and justice. On her first day at a new school, she discovers that someone needs her help, and she will do whatever it takes to make things right. Even when her world is turned upside down.

In Horsens, the exiled Russian princess Elisabeth Antonovna is imprisoned. Though her existence is a sad one, two things in particular can cheer the princess up: stories about the cunning smuggler Madsalune, and flirting with her humble suitor, Lieutenant Johan Gordon. One fine day, the two joys merge into one, when it transpires that the lieutenant is in fact the smuggler Madsalune in disguise! The princess’ fortune is decided, or at least it almost is because the two lovers first have to smuggle the princess through thick walls and past an army of jailers. (Stumfilm.dk)

Various people on the street stand stock still in front of the movie camera as though their photograph were about to be taken. This lasts just a few instants, then they nod as they look into the camera and move on. A family, a group of friends, men. In the background, city noises.

The opium smoker Hugo is the youngest son of Baron von Kaufmann, who also is a victim of the drug habit. Hugo is insanely jealous of his older brother Ernest. When Ernst's engagement with beautiful Henny is announced at a costume ball Hugo he gets furious. Observed by his valet he is calmed down. Hugo's valet see's his opportunity to strengthen his position. The film was banned in Denmark. Instead it opened in Finland.

The film portrays a group of artists who since the early 1960s have completely disrupted our ideas of what art can be. In large part filmed in Venice in 1990, when many of the original Fluxus artists met to hold a large exhibition almost 30 years after the first highly untraditional Fluxus' performances. Features Eric Andersen, Philip Corner, Dick Higgins, Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, Ben Vautier, and many others.

9-year old Valdemar lives with his father Bo on a country house in the province. They have a friendly relationship, but Bo is suffering from alcohol problems, and Valdemar must therefore often be the adult one and take responsibility for himself. When Valdemar one day suspects the nurse Ulla for wanting to force him away from Bo, he starts an imaginary battle to defend the farm and to stay with Bo. This gets Bo to look deeply into himselves and deceive the only thing he loves in the world, his son, to give him a childhood before it is too late.

A group of highly motivated activists work for years with the goal of exposing the true face of the Nordic fur industry. They sneak into hundreds of fur farms. When their images are publicized it causes media feasts and public outrage, year after year. However, the industry always strikes back. Nothing changes. A new approach is needed. So, psychologist Frank Nervik tells the fur industry that he plans to become a fur farmer. He asks for training. Nervik is accepted as one of them, and starts learning the trade secrets. Without anybody knowing, he films his training with a hidden camera.

A film about visions. Tal R is one of Denmark´s star artists, who has painted, sculpted and expressed himself to the top of the international art scene. In Daniel Dencik´s portrait ´Tal R - The Virgin´, we get to know the artist through a series of tableaus. Tal R was a haunted boy and his nightly visions still is a driving force in his work. A film full of charm and everyday magic, where characters, colours and shadows appear like fantasy figures onto the screen.

FRAGMENT |The beautiful Margrethe is engaged to the seminarian Bengt Darre, but oh, he’s such a bore. He’s a bit of a dreamer and very pious. She’s cheerful, happy and ready for wild adventures. When he blames her for killing a swan, Margrethe has had enough. She leaves him and finds herself a new man. Bengt becomes a monk and devotes himself to God. However, none of them manage to find happiness. (Stumfilm.dk)

Dr. Harvig is a retired brain surgeon who is dissatisfied with Danish foreign policy and decides to take matters into his own hands.

Artist group ABCinema's footage from Rødovrecentret, Denmark's first large shopping center in Rødovre, a suburb of Copenhagen. A collage of super 8 footage, shot with multiple cameras. (DFI)

Buster is a seriously-demanding, frantic child who forces his family to seek treatment and a cure for his manic behavior. During treatment conducted by a naturopath, the father is taken deeper behind his son's motivations, uncovering what seems to be a crucial problem in modern society. One in four children in America is treated with tranquilizing medicine, and in Europe leading doctors and child psychiatrists are calling out to bring attention to this increasing problem. How do we deal with frantic children?

Søndreø is a small, peaceful island in one of Denmark's fjords, owned and run by the old farmer Lars Søndervold and his son Søren. But times are hard, and everything is not going as it should. The greedy, bragging merchant Anders Lundrup has used all means to gain possession of the island, and one fine day Søren and his old father must leave their ancestral farm and the island. Søren swears an expensive oath - he will earn so much money that he can one day buy the farm and the island back, and at the same time he swears revenge on Anders Lundrup.

The poor child Inger must endure trials of an almost biblical nature before her heart can be saved by true love. First, Inger is rejected by the love of her youth, Hans, who chooses a rich man’s daughter instead. Because of this, she gets thrown out into the street by her own mother but finds refuge with an acrobat in a travelling circus. When the circus performer dies in an accident, Inger gives birth to a fatherless child who doesn’t survive the night, for which she is even accused of infanticide. Guilt overwhelms Hans as he hears about Inger’s tragedies. Can Hans’ repentance save the lost Inger? (Stumfilm.dk)

From 1960 to 1973, Chief Physician Einar Geert-Jørgensen and a small select team of doctors treated several hundred Danish psychiatric patients with LSD in a basement at Frederiksberg Hospital. A large number of patients suffered serious consequences, and the LSD doctors were accused of subjecting patients to experimentation, coercion and lethal treatments with LSD, but were acquitted of all charges. But now, 60 years later, a secret archive of LSD doctors has emerged, casting doubt on the authorities’ decision in one of the most bizarre drug scandals in Danish history. Journalist Lotte Mathilde Nielsen is the director, and actor Thure Lindhardt has directed the dramatisation, using all his cinematic experience with dramatic reconstructions and star actors like Søren Pilmark and Amalie Dollerup in the roles of the LSD doctors.

After interviewing a woman who has suffered from mental illness, a journalist sits in the newsroom working intensively on the recordings. That same evening, her work is interrupted when her colleagues throw a party in the newsroom, or perhaps it is her sympathy for the mentally ill woman that is getting the better of her?

A family vacation and birthday celebration in Skagen, Denmark, is beset by the unexpected.

The popular Danish family are vacationing on the island of Bornholm. Unfortunately, they have not been able to get hotel rooms, but Tiny Per, always resourceful, have come up with the idea that they must sleep in a tent. Father and Uncle Anders are not quite enthusiastic about the idea, but there is nothing else to do.

FRAGMENT | These recordings were part of Valdemar Psilander’s live performance at the Royal Orfeum in Budapest, in February and March 1914. Psilander financed the show himself, and it was a mixture of film and theatre under the title Count Dahlborg’s Secret. The film footage, which unfortunately hasn’t been preserved in its entirety, opened the performance, after which Psilander himself rode onto the stage and continued the action. (stumfilm.dk)

Jakob is attracted to Rakel, the girlfriend of the guy who is bullying him, Thomas. He feels small but he is determined to feel big.

Can Raniya get past her family’s prejudice in order to find love with a woman for the first time or will she keep running away from how she feels?

Sami seeks revenge after being forced to kill his friend, and he finds a new ally.

In the most idyllic East Jutland, the corn stands tall and beautiful, while Count Carl Trolle and his family thrive. The daughter Mathilde and the honorable and hard-working Preben want to get married and are only waiting for Mathilde to turn 18 and Preben to finish his education. But the lazy and sloppy Magnus also has a good eye for Mathilde, and what he doesn't get, he takes.

The meals based on indigenous ingredients and sustainability at the forefront. Project managers are soon faced with problems ranging from sourcing ingredients to staffing a high-end restaurant in a location inhabited by only 53 people.

Once upon a time, large, beautiful seaside hotels adorned the coast of Øresund – from Bellevue Strandhotel in the south to Hornbæk Badehotel in the north. While the film's director, Stig Lommer, was director of the Hornbæk revues, he was a frequent guest at the bars in these hotels. He loved the glamorous life in this setting and asked Arvid Müller to write a light-hearted "Sommer-Lommer-Spøg" (Summer Joke) about the "deeds of the night" at a seaside hotel. The now defunct Beaulieu (north of Taarbæk) and Marienlyst (in Helsingør) form the backdrop for bandleader Hans Herbert and his pursuit of summer guest Mrs. Winter. This drives the exchange broker to a spontaneous suicide attempt in the middle of a mannequin show. However, he is saved by Mrs. Holgersen, who believes it is for her sake, so she blossoms completely. So much so that she is completely unrecognizable to the manufacturer when he arrives at the hotel.

Set in 1962 during the Berlin crisis, the contented lifestyle of Carmen and her kid brother, whom she's nicknamed Babyface, comes to an abrupt end when their parents acrimoniously separate.

The life story of the famous danish author Jakob Ejersbo is told as his two friends are struggling to reach the top of Kilimanjaro to spread his ashes from there.

A husband is tempted to stray, gives in, and then struggles with himself and his conscience. The children are weighed in the balance, and in the end they are what make him stay in the marriage, even though he must then forsake the woman who for a time sweetened his life outside the confines of home.

Footage of the German airship Hansa over Copenhagen.

Two Danish poets meet by chance at Mrs. Lind's guesthouse in Haderslev. Herman Bang and Holger Drachmann. They both throw themselves into the personal problems of the maid Karen. Or are they more interested in their own?

Invites the viewers to the eponymous island state in the Arctic north between Canada and Greenland.

A married couple is having sexual difficulties. The husband acquiesces in his wife's having a lover who visits her every Friday. The lover participates in a collective living arrangement, where sex as well as household chores are shared. Thinking that they will benefit from a similar scheme, the couple starts their own collective. However, the wife dislikes it when her husband begins to spend time with a younger woman in the collective, and the collective frowns on her having an outside relationship (her Friday lover).

Hans Christian Andersen, a socially awkward nobody, moves to Copenhagen with dreams of conquering Denmark's cultural elite and becoming a famous artist. In a colourful and merciless world of actors, playwrights and snobbish benefactors, Christian fiercely fights to get the recognition and love he so desperately craves. But his own delusions of grandeur may turn out to be his greatest weakness; the last thing he wants is to be known as a children's fairytale writer.

A young couple appear to be perfectly happy and in love, but one day the woman discovers that her husband is having an affair. She seeks out his mistress, and the two women agree to resolve their conflict in a duel.(stumfilm.dk)

FRAGMENT | A man lies on his deathbed and shows his will to his carer. After his death, a grieving man and woman come in. The scene changes and we find ourselves on a beach in the company of two couples. They’re about up to fight on a cliff, and one of the men plummets to his death. Then the scene changes again to a living room with a sobbing woman. (Stumfilm.dk)

Acclaimed theater director Erik Werner is setting up a stage play dramatizing memories from his marriage to his wife Juliane who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. During the process Erik discovers that he and Juliane have had vastly different experiences of their shared life together. Experiences that will make Erik see his marriage in a new light.

Eddie Holm, a sensitive, unusual musician, decides to give up his craft.

West Lake Restaurant in South China's Changsha can safely call itself the biggest Chinese restaurant in the world, with its staff of 1,000 working 5,000 tables and serving no fewer than 150 ducks per day and 200 snakes per week. The words of the restaurant's staff and guests are used in the film to paint a picture of modern China: the proprietress, one of the city's 20 self-made millionaires, speaks candidly about her failed marriage; a bridegroom-to-be who is celebrating at the restaurant explains the modern Chinese customs associated with the wedding party; and a waitress visits her poor parents in the countryside. Through these scenes, we gain insight into the unique combination of the ancient religious values and the new capitalist values with which China is stepping into the 21st century.

The young and beautiful Laura Heiberg is to marry Torsten Vinge. When the priest asks if she will marry him, she says no. She flees from the church and gets a lift from Jonas Møller. He is heading north along the coast. At the 42 km marker in the forest, she asks to be dropped off. She follows a telephone wire to see where it ends. She finds a beautiful house in the forest. It looks uninhabited, but the door is open, so she goes inside. No one responds to her calls. She sends a telegram to an old flame, Herbert Thorsen, asking him to fetch some clothes from home and bring them to her. At the same time, she tells him that she did not get married after all. She finds a book called "What Do You Know About Yourself" written by Allan Krogh. She takes it out onto the terrace to read.

The princess of Illyria, who has rejected all the fine suitors who have proposed to her, begins to take an interest in a gypsy who wanders around near the castle and who is in fact none other than the prince of Denmark with his friend, Kasper Røghat. The prince entices her with his magical toys, a rattle and a copper kettle, the price being a kiss and a night in the princess's chamber. Casper the Dwarf makes sure that the king is informed of the 'affair', and the princess is thrown out by her father.

A corrupt young man somehow keeps his youthful beauty, but a special painting gradually reveals his inner ugliness to all.

Nikolaj Stokholm's show gives the audience a unique insight into the life that was always meant to make others laugh. It's a hilarious story in every way imaginable, which of course can only be told by the man who has been through it all himself. Hear about his strange childhood, some embarrassing teenage years and the question that many have asked Nikolaj: “How did you become a comedian?”

This year's Grin til Gavn (Grin for Good) is held at Aarhus Musikhus on December 27 and at Bremen Teater in Copenhagen on December 29. This year's hosts are Mikkel Klint Thorius and Jonas Mogensen! Look forward to a fantastic show with some of the country's best comedians, who are performing to benefit vulnerable children in Denmark and the rest of the world.