19/09/2017 - The Danish director will start principal photography next month for his new period drama, with James Bond actor Jesper Christensen in the lead

In attendance recently at the Toronto International Film Festival, where his international remake of Papillon [+see also:
trailer
film profile] was world-premiered on 7 September, Danish director Michael Noer has announced that he will return to Denmark to shoot his next feature, Before the Frost [+see also:
trailer
interview: Elliott Crosset Hove
film profile], with Danish actor Jesper Christensen in the lead. 

In Papillon, the Red Granite Pictures remake of the 1973 Oscar-nominated crime drama, featuring a new screenplay by Aaron Guzikowski, Charlie Hunnam and Rami Malek have taken over the roles played by Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman; at Toronto, it was screened in the Special Presentations programme.

Noer, whose latest Danish feature was Key House Mirror [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Michael Noer
film profile] (2015), a romantic drama starring Ghita Nørby and Sven Wollter, has co-written his new film with Jesper Fink, returning to rural 1850s Denmark, where an old farmer, Jens, and his family face starvation. The only solution to ensure the continuation of his bloodline in a tough, dog-eat-dog world is to find a suitable husband for his daughter.

“I reflect on Jens' motives and dreams, but I also think the film relates to the modern day by telling us about our past,” Noer explained. “I am myself the father of two young children, so I know that the limit on how far parents will go for their children is infinite. At the same time, I also know how quickly you gain ambitions on behalf of your children – but are they in the children’s best interest or, in fact, my own dreams? 

“The film is an attempt to reinvent the period drama by treating it like a hard-boiled genre movie – a dark, moral western about survival and anguish, directed with the same documentary nerve as my other feature films,” concluded Noer, who will start principal photography in mid-October for the René Ezra, Matilda Appelin and Tomas Radoor production for Nordisk Film. Nordisk will handle the local release in early 2019 and TrustNordisk international sales.