Discoveries from Denmark World Cinema

The young artist Simon Durand happens to find himself in an idyllic village. Here he finds board and lodging with Marietta, who lives alone with her sick mother, and soon Durand has won the heart of his young hostess. Their happy state is threatened by the wealthy farmer Jerome, who has been courting Marietta in vain for a long time and is not about to abandon his hopes of eventually marrying her. He tattles on the couple to Marietta’s mother, who immediately suffers a heart attack and dies at the mere thought of a poor painter as her son-in-law. When Durand is simultaneously called away to the big city, Marietta’s mind is greatly clouded. (Stumfilm.dk)

The only reason the two lawyers, Chit and Chat, haven’t gone bankrupt is their talented secretary, Amanda. But when Amanda suddenly stands to inherit millions, things look quite bleak for Chit and Chat. They have to turn up the charm if they want to keep her. However, for the two lawyers, everything is easier said than done. (Stumfilm.dk)

Every night a common thief stalks the local girl’s school, and he may already have stolen one heart. The headmistress of the school calls upon her nephew, the mighty detective, Basse, to apprehend the thief. On his way, Basse bumps into young Miss Lise, who happens to study at the school. Unfortunately, the great detective fails to grasp the core of the case: that Lise has an undisclosed sweetheart, who pays her secret visits every night after bedtime. (Stumfil.dk)

One out of ten in Denmark suffers from mental illness and it is the most common health condition of them all. Yet, due to the taboo and stigmatisation of mental illness, it is still under prioritized and as a result the welfare system is pushed to its limits. The care of the mentally ill instead falls upon relatives, most often parents and they become the lifeline and primary carer. When a family member gets sick it affects everyone in that family and especially those who love them. LOVE BOUND unconvers the unconditional love, which governs the relationship most parents have to their children and that must somehow be altered, when a child is suffering from mental illness.

Christian takes us from the beginning, more precisely the big bang, to the creation of our solar system, past the beginning of life, the origin of man, all the way to the Greeks, philosophers and the birth of the West. How can nothing become everything? And how can a weak monkey go from being at the bottom of the food chain, starting on all fours, to standing upright on two legs at the top of the heap? We've got 13.8 billion years to go, so buckle up, we're in a hurry!

Nikolai II (1868-1918), the last Russian czar, son of Alexander III and Dagmar. He had been in Denmark on vacation with his parents several times. The royal houses usually met in September to celebrate Queen Louise's birthday. Even after Queen Louise's death, the families still kept the tradition.

Adda and her husband Ove live a quiet and routined life in their home of many years. Their marriage is filled with love and respect but Adda finds herself wondering what could have been. When their granddaughter visits this is brought to the surface and the dreams that Adda has selflessly been hiding start to show.

The men the European public admires most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.

Amanda has found the perfect man online - he's kind, funny and the heir to one of the richest families in Denmark. She lets him into her home and life, but is he really who he says he is?

On June 2017, the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR) hosted three orchestral concerts called Galaxymphony which included some of the soundtrack from various space and sci-fi movies. This is their version of some of the Star Wars soundtrack across all seven movies. The concert was hosted by Jakob Stegelmann and conducted by Antony Hermus. The performance was orchestrated by The Danish National Symphony Orchestra with help from the 'Camerata' and 'Hymnia' choirs. As told in the video, the host, Jakob Stegelmann, is very passionate about the Star Wars films and therefore evidently the main event of the concert. Therefore, I have shared this extra long video (what a horror it was to render) for you to enjoy.

Over a period of 6 years award winning director Max Kester follows two best friends and top engineers as they follow their dream to build a "DIY" rocket to travel into space. If they succeed, Denmark will be only the fourth nation in history to launch people beyond the Earth's atmosphere. Against their families odd's and technical challenges they build the cheapest rocket for the costs of a small car. They attract a group of space-flight enthusiasts from around the world who support them with great excitement. It's the story of one of the greatest dreams of humankind and how to make it come true, despite such everyday obstacles as losing your screwdriver or fighting about whose turn it is to take out the trash. It's a film about reaching for the stars.

This animated film is an advertisement for the Danish weekly magazine ‘Hjemmet’, which is still published today. ‘Hjemmet’, meaning ‘Home’, was originally called ‘Damernes Blad’ (‘The Ladies’ Magazine’) but changed its name in 1904, a few years after it was acquired by the publishing company Egmont. The advertisement was drawn by the much beloved Danish multi-talent Robert Storm Petersen, popularly known as Storm P., whose many accomplishments included being behind some of Denmark’s earliest animated films. This ad also includes a few seconds of live-action footage showing Storm P. himself smoking a pipe and reading an issue of ‘Hjemmet’. (Stumfilm. dk)

An oil sheik has bought Bornholm and turned the Danish island into a Middle Eastern holiday paradise – for shababs only.

When are you old? Is it when others think you are or is it only when you feel old yourself! In Thomas Hartmann's seventh one-man show, this question, along with many others, will be answered. Hartmann, who in some ways is forever young and in others has always been old, has reached a turning point in his life and casts his comedic eye both forward and backward in time.

Two girls, Chloë and Celeste, takes its audience on a surreal journey towards humanity's decay. A haunting portrait of our own extinction.

19-year-old Melitta von Windheim is profoundly fascinated by the famous actor Ludvig Romay. That’s why she can hardly believe her own good fortune, as it turns out that her cousin Rudolf is an old friend of Romay and wants to introduce them. Romay and Melitta hit it off straight away, and before poor Rudolf can look twice, the woman he’s in love with is married off to someone else. Over the years, the marriage crumbles, and a tragic accident hits Melitta so hard that she has to leave for warmer climes. Romay continues his career and the wild social life that comes with it, but his past suddenly catches up with him. (Stumfilm.dk)

Seize the day, seize the hour and meet four female photographers, who may have a lot of experience under their belt, but who also continue to be courageous and curious at a level where everyone can (and should!) be inspired. The World is Out of Focus introduces us to four Danish, female photographers Else Tholstrup, Nanna Bisp Büchert, Marianne Engberg and Tove Kurtzweil – all brimming with a zest for life, a creative urge, and an anecdote or five!

Forough Farrokhzad, rebel, misfit and feminist icon, fights to tell her story in a world not yet ready for the uncomfortable truths of female desire.

Niels Hausgaard's tour, 'I alle de rige lande' (In All the Rich Countries), featuring guitarist Chr. Alvad and singer Signe Svendsen, visited Odense on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And it was sold out. People got what they came for. As always, Niels Hausgaard's tour of 67 concerts is completely sold out—and it's easy to see why. He is Denmark's best seated stand-up comedian, managing to skewer the warlords Bush and Fogh with witty and funny angles, ridiculing Camre and the Langballe and Krarup cousins until there's not a dry eye in the house. He also exposes the creeping fascism at the Danish royal family's dinner tables, overflowing with marble cake and self-satisfaction.

In 2006, the American aluminium company ALCOA decides to build their plant in Greenland. The massive billion dollars’ project is the opportunity for Greenland to become financially independent from Denmark. The film zooms in on the isolated fishing town Maniitsoq as the years pass and the local inhabitants are put on hold – waiting for the American Dream.

Girl Beast is a psychological drama with a magical and heightened reality, that tells a Lolita story from Lolita's point of view. Sara is a girl beast, an object of desire and a being of desire. The story is adapted from Cecilie Lind’s novel with the same title. It balances between self-assertion and self-destruction. Loss and liberation. Powerlessness and power.

Animal caretaker Hans-Erik works at an animal shelter and is stuck in the comfortable routine of everyday life. But when the shelter is suddenly sold, he has to urgently seek help from career coach Mona to save his job. Meeting Mona turns everything upside down for Hans-Erik, and he realizes that there may be something more important than his job.

Siticulosa’s multidisciplinary research considers the relationship between archaeology, geology and agriculture in the Puglian landscape. “Parched” or “very dry”, as in Horace’s description of the region (Siticulosa Apulia), continues to be an accurate description of the dominant conditions that allow for the appearance of crop marks to indicate the presence of archaeological sites beneath. The film is a study of a territory, and the marks and wounds that it bears of a history of pillage, but also a portrait of the people that inhabit it (farmers, antique dealers, amateur archaeologists, local historians) and their symbiotic relationship to the landscape.

Boarding school friends Edith and Yvonne's intimate friendship is put to the test by fate in this tragic love triangle. Their paths diverge when Edith's father dies and she has to move back home to her mother. Years pass, Edith marries a handsome officer, while Yvonne pursues an artistic career. Time and again she declines Edith's invitations to come and live with her and her officer, Kai Hornung. When she finally comes to rest for a few weeks, sparks fly between Yvonne and Kai – and the drama ends with bloodshed. (Stumfilm.dk).

Aksel wakes up with a beautiful and loving woman by his side, the morning sun and a gentle breeze coming in through the window. However, this idyll doesn't last long, as the day gradually falls more and more apart.

A Danish woman and a "new Danish" man dream about a future together in a society that does not embrace diversity. It turns into a Babushka's game where dreams inside dreams make it difficult to understand what is real and what is not.

Best in the World offers a revealing look beyond the photogenic image of Copenhagen.

A group of four people sit at a table in a dark room with a domino game in front of them. A voice coming from somewhere in the room tells them what to do and how to act. Through individual scenes for each person, we learn about them and the norms and standards they are forced to live up to in society.

One of the country’s greatest poets and pop singers bows out and bids farewell to 40 years of career with a smashing farewell concert from VEGA in Copenhagen.

A penniless student, Jean Valour, falls in love with a millionaire’s daughter, Madeleine Chanteloup. Making a bet with his friends, he vows that within six months she will be his wife. But how can a student without money or rank ever hope to get her father’s blessing? Together with his friends, Jean devises a cunning plan that involves a start-up corporation and an older, unmarried baroness. (stumfilm.dk)

VOLBEAT LIVE IN HAMBURG 2019 from the REWIND • REPLAY • REBOUND WORLD TOUR.

When Beate moves into her new apartment, she immediately falls for the manly caretaker. She tries increasingly desperate measures to attract his attention, but even a caretaker's patience has its limits – and reaching it can have fatal consequences.

Django is put to a tough test as he is forced out on a night drive with his new girlfriend Sascha and unstable friend Tommy. Good and evil forces try to control the course of the battle.

Teacher Clausen and his classmates don't think Henry can figure anything out. But then Henry gets glasses.

In a wooded and inhospitable village at the end of the world, there exists “The Ancients,” a subversive group of sorcerers who seek to reestablish the so-called “Recta Provincia.” Juan, a police chief, arrives in this village with his daughter Emilia. What they both don't know is that Emilia is the one “The Ancients” have been waiting for to reactivate a new order and revive their monstrous guardian, the INVUNCHE, through a ritual sacrifice.

At the holiday colony Sæbystrand in Sæby under the Copenhagen Municipal Teachers' Association you follow the boys in daily life

What makes a mother give away her baby? This is the big question in Sun Hee Engelstoft’s poignant heartbreaker of a film about three Korean women who have become pregnant outside of marriage and are now hiding from the outside world until they give birth. They live in a shelter for unwed mothers on a South Korean island, where beautiful landscapes are in sharp contrast to the fierce dilemma that women go through: should they keep their children or give them up for adoption? Engelstoft has been given unique access to this particular shelter run by the strong-willed Mrs. Im, who fights for the girls’ independence but is up against a social structure and family tradition that leaves women in an impossible situation. Engelstoft’s sensitive portrait brings us close to a forbidden world and through her own experience as a Korean adoptee, she gives a deeply personal and extraordinary insight into a culture in which women can’t choose their own fate.

In the heart of Greenland’s vast frozen wilderness, 12-year-old Pipaluk lives with her mother and brother in an isolated village. Her dream: to compete in the most prestigious dog sled race, a challenge reserved for the greatest mushers, all men. Mocked by her peers and ignored by her family, Pipaluk develops a friendship with an adorable husky puppy named Ashia, and finds an unexpected ally in Tulok, a solitary and enigmatic old hunter. Under Tulok’s guidance, she slowly opens to the wonders of nature, discovers the true reason for his support, and soon realises that their destinies are intertwined. Will Pipaluk find the strength to defy tradition and achieve the impossible?

Summer has arrived, and people are fleeing the sun-scorched, stony streets of the city. Pat and Patachon also leave the stifling streets behind to spend the summer in the countryside. Armed with a homemade camera, they hope to earn a living by taking photographs, though their efforts are not particularly successful. By chance, they come across an inn owned by the formidable Mother Hulda. She quickly sniffs out their attempt to make their escape without paying their bill, and while Patachon is forced to stay as collateral, Pat sets off to make some money. He becomes the subject of many unpleasant mishaps along the way, while Patachon is coerced into becoming engaged to Hulda and gets entangled in a conflict between Hulda, her daughter Grethe, and Grethe’s boyfriend Erik. (Stumfilm.dk)

A modern, funny, off beat and bloody brilliant take on Shakespeare's bloody, brilliant Macbeth.

At a social gathering, a man gets up and gives a speech about a small people by the sea to the north. A place with sand dunes, a raging sea and real wind. It is a place where people stay, but where the sand is constantly shifting, so that an entire lighthouse has to be lifted and moved 70 metres inland to stop it from falling into the sea. A place where the biggest hero is a bricklayer. It’s warm up there, things are kept within budget and you don’t need to sign a contract to have a deal. The man giving the speech is local legend Niels Hausgaard, a singer and storyteller, whose distinct dialect resonates with genuine sincerity. The name of the place is Vendsyssel, and even if you cannot name the zip code, ‘Somewhere by the Sea’ will still take you to a place rarely seen on the big screen.

The young woman Kristine has been subjected to abuse. Several months into her psychology course, she has to admit that she is not getting better. In desperation, she seeks solace in something that used to make her happy, but that doesn't help either. Kristine therefore takes drastic measures to move forward.