20/09/2016 - Martin Zandvliet’s award-winning film will represent Denmark in the race for an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign-language Film

Danish director Martin Zandvliet’s third feature, Land of Mine [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Louis Hofmann
interview: Martin Zandvliet
film profile], which was earlier this year awarded the top €108,000 Dragon Prize for Best Nordic Film at the Göteborg International Film Festival, has been named Denmark’s official candidate for the Oscar nomination in the Best Foreign-language Film category.

The Danish Oscar committee, headed by Claus Ladegaard, deputy director of the Danish Film Institute, chose Land of Mine from a shortlist that also included Danish director Thomas Vinterberg’s The Commune [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Thomas Vinterberg
film profile] and Swedish director Lisa Ohlin's Walk With Me [+see also:
trailer
film profile].

“All three films demonstrate the high quality of Danish film, and also show elements of Danish history and culture that we want to know more about. It has been an exciting task for the committee to assess and decide which of them has the greatest potential to tempt the Oscar Academy members,” Ladegaard explained.

Based on real-life events, and scripted by Zandvliet himself, the film is set in Denmark after World War II and the end of Nazi Germany's occupation of the country, when 2,000 German troopers refused to leave. As prisoners of war, they “volunteered” to clear the Danish coast of the 2.2 million landmines that their fellow countrymen had left. Half of them lost their lives or were severely mutilated.

At the Danish Film Academy’s Robert Awards, the movie won for Best Film, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay, with the Audience Award into the bargain. Starring Roland Møller, Louis Hofmann, Joel Basman and Mikkel Boe Følsgaard, the film produced by Mikael Rieks for Nordisk Film Production has also been nominated for the Nordic Council Film Prize, Scandinavia’s largest.

Zandvliet is currently working on The Outsider, a US production starring Jared Leto and Tadanobu Asano, staged by Linson and Waypoint Entertainment. The US Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will publish the nominations on 24 January 2017, and the awards ceremony will take place on 26 February.