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09/16/2009 FREE SCREENING OF ANTICHRIST by LARS v TRIER 10.11.09 & BRONSON OPENS in LA 10.16.09 - ANTICHRIST: RSVP tickets distributed on a first-come, first-served basis. Limit one (1) ticket per person. RSVP tickets not redeemed at 8:15pm will be released to our waiting list.
RSVP to: sukirose@cinefamily.org
FOR MORE INFO on free screening of Antichrist go to Danish Film Fest Facebook Group:
http://www.new.facebook.com/group.php?gid=25610514690
BRONSON OPENS in LA Oct 16th, 2009:
It is directed by Danish director Nicolas Winding REFN (PUSHER Trilogy).
Laemmle's Sunset 5
8000 Sunset Blvd.
West Hollywood, 90046
323-848-3500
It is a savagely smart, hilariously alarming portrait oft Britain's most notorious and violent prisoner. Tom Hardy plays Bronson and gives an outrageous, humorous and scary performance.
DANISH FILM FEST + sevencees co-presented preview of BRONSON and
DANISH FILM FEST & sevencees hosted BRONSON after party Friday night.
Danish director Nicolas REFN + star of the film Tom HARDY did Q+A
LEONARDO DICAPRIO + TOBEY MAGUIRE were in the audinece.
DICAPRIO was the first audience member to stand up and generously give a standing ovation to the talent. DiCaprio stars in the new film "Inception" dir. by Chris Nolan with Tom Hardy playing a colleague of DiCaprio's according to Cinematical.com (release 2010)
Party co-sponsored by CARLSBERG Beer, ARLA Foods and HYGGE Bakery.
We thank our sponsors :)
PROGRAM WAS:
Fri 9.18 @ 8PM : BRONSON with Nicolas Refn + Bronson star Tom Hardy In Person/s
11:30 PM show added
Sat 9.19 @ 6PM : DOUBLE FEATURE:
GAMBLER + BLEEDER with Nicolas Refn In Person
Silent Movie Theatre
More about the films and 7Cs - the new company consulting between Hollywood and Scandinavia - on our FACEBOOK Group 'Danish Film Fest' -
SEE VIDEO on youtube and pictures from the event :
http://www.youtube.com/user/danishfilmfest
09/21/2009 BRONSON REVIEW - SUNDANCE REVIEW of BRONSON
Raw, blistering, harsh and compelling in the way that only a really good "prison film" can be, Nicolas Wining Refn's Bronson is a rather rough experience. Fortunately it's also very smart, dark, intelligent and disturbing, supported by a force-of-nature lead performance and a screenplay that focuses more on the "character study" angle and less on the "wow, prison sure is disgusting" perspective.
Based (apparently very closely) on actual events, Bronson is about a British thug named Michael Peterson, a rough, gruff, and muscle-bound troublemaker who somehow earned the title of Britian's most violent prisoner. Incarcerated for a stupid (but non-violent) post office robbery, Peterson adopts the moniker of American film star Charles Bronson and begins a long and rather unpleasant life behind bars. Although he's more of a angry man than an outright evil one, poor Bronson has a serious problem keeping his temper in check. Stuck in a cell with little to do besides build muscles and pace around nervously, Bronson snatches every opportunity to dole out some raw-knuckled fisticuffs whenever the "screws" invade his cell.
One of the more compelling ironies is that, despite his prediliction for bare-fisted violence, Bronson is actually a very smart and sensitive man. The argument could be made that prison life transformed an aimless and frustrated man into a career criminal of the most notorious kind. Aside from a few short-lived releases (and a nasty stint in an icky asylum), Bronson has spent decades behind bars -- despite the fact that his only real crimes were a few rough robberies and a whole lot of prison cell brawling. Whether or not this man deserved to spend two decades in solitary confinement is one of the more interesting arguments to be found in Bronson -- and of course there's an assumption that maybe prison life made the man a lot "nastier" than he would have been otherwise.
But after decades of isolation, anger, and general misery, Bronson discovers an outlet for his emotional handicaps: Art and poetry. Danish filmmaker Nick Refn walks an tightrope between allowing us to despise the often-animalistic Bronson and compelling us to see the more vulnerable side of a man who has known little but bloody knuckles and brutality. There's also a subtle-but-strong implication that ... maybe Bronson wouldn't have been such an angry guy if he'd had some sort of artistic outlets earlier in life. Or maybe the guy just LIKES beating the snot out of people. Like the best character studies, Bronson doesn't chastise or deify its subject. We get to see the ugly, the funny, the disturbing, and the charming sides of Charlie Bronson, and we're left to decide how we feel about the guy.
Which brings us to the lead performance by one Tom Hardy. Quite frankly this is one of the roughest, rawest, and most powerfully commanding performances I've seen in a long time. Seen previously in films like Black Hawk Down, Star Trek: Nemesis, Marie Antoinette, and RocknRolla, Mr. Hardy delivers a stunning performance that reminds you why the phrase "force of nature" is often used in film reviews. Reminiscent of Eric Bana's powerful work in the slightly similar Chopper, Hardy provides a character that is nothing short of drop-dead fascinating. Plus, his director throws in lots of great stuff for the actor, including a series of framing segments in which Hardy is allowed to perform for a judgmental audience. The man is simply amazing. Raw, vulnerable, sympathetic AND villainous, Hardy turns Bronson into one of the most fascinating anti-heroes in recent memory.
But a challenging character story and a stunning lead performance are only two parts of the equation. Luckily, Mr. Refn (director of the well-received Pusher trilogy) keeps things more than interesting enough in the visual department. Although much of the film takes place in deep, dank, dark cells, chambers, and hallways, Refn keeps mixing things up with colors, shadows, and lots of creative little tricks. Many good prison movies get you knee-deep into the feeling of incarceration -- but this movie goes a step further by putting you into an actual prisoner. Best of all, Bronson doesn't spin its wheels or bother with unnecessary blather. This is a tight-fisted, bare-knuckled, and consistently challenging story about a man who's really very fascinating -- but damn, you really wouldn't want to stand in the same room with him.
In some ways Bronson feels a lot like the prison flicks you know, love, and squirm through ... but once in a while it transcends the genre and turns into something quite wonderfully ... weird. And I'll say it one more time: Tom Hardy's performance ... wow.
09/15/2009 NEW COMPANY SEVENCEES -
sevencees is a new consultancy company emerging from Danish Film Fest (DFF)
and Scandinavian Arts Foundation (SAAF).
SAAF is a non-profit organization started in 1990 and
has been the presenting organization for DFF 2006-2009.
It will become an umbrella organization for a number of cultural
and artistic activities and business initiatives:
Danish Film Fest will become a category under this umbrella.
DFF's role in LA has become more of a co-presenting organization.
DFF will be involved in AFI Fest again this year
- look for announcements!
We're planning a Scandinavian event at Sundance 2010
- look for announcements!
sevencees is a for-profit firm:
We assist the entertainment, design and visual communities of Hollywood
and Scandinavia in the role that best services the client as they seek to grow, expand and conquer new arenas.
The assistance we offer is as varied as the client needs, relying on our more than two decades of experience while open to adding new directions to our repertoire.
We recently assisted Lord Of The Rings-Actor Sean Astin as
he went to Copenhagen doing research for a feature film project
of his and are currently working with a group of Danish film students
coming to Hollywood on a field trip.
We rely on word of mouth, so please help spread the word about
our services which we believe are needed, now that The Danish Trade Commission in LA has closed down and the Swedish Consulate in LA will be closing in a few months.
Our website will be announced later this month.
09/09/2009 FLAME & CITRON with MADS MIKKELSEN playing in Sept -
Check Moviefone or other application for show times/venues...
LAWEEKLY:
"Of all European nations, Denmark enjoys the nearest thing to a heroic record of resisting the Nazi occupiers — which adds both poignancy and punch to Ole Christian Madsen’s fact-based drama about two posthumously honored Danes. Framed without cynicism as a gangster picture (the point being that contract killing turns everyone into a thug, however noble the cause), this slickly produced picture stars the almost unbearably charismatic Thure Lindhardt and the saturnine Mads Mikkelson as co-assassins — one loves killing, the other makes a mess of everything but killing — charged with executing Denmark’s Nazi collaborators. Flame & Citron is less about the battle between good and evil than about losing one’s way in the fog of war, which makes it hard to tell friend from foe and harder yet to sort through the rules of engagement, and complicates the heroic honor codes of movies about the “good war.” Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1969 masterpiece, Army of Shadows, exerts a palpable influence, but in its own right, Flame & Citron is the film that the horribly overrated Black Book could have been, had Paul Verhoeven not indulged in the puerile reversals of sensitive Nazis and treacherous partisans".
(Ella Taylor)
03/07/2009 DANISH FILM FEST 2008 VIDEO - Check out the highlights from the Danish Film Fest 2008. In collaboration with AFI FEST November 2008. A one day+one night event: Danish By Day + Danish By Night: Screenings, Q+A, seminars, master class, party, networking and more.
03/16/2009 BECOME A FRIEND of our facebook group + myspace - JOIN OUR FACEBOOK GROUP :
Danish Film Fest Facebook Group
BECOME OUR MYSPACE FRIEND:
Danish Film Fest on Myspace
07/21/2009 IDA DOCUWEEKS July-Aug 09 - Danish Film Fest was happy to announce IDA DOCUWEEKS THEATRICAL SERIES
Screenings were held in Los Angeles and New York City July 31st through August 20th, 2009, IDA’s 13th Annual DocuWeeks™ Theatrical Documentary Showcase will present 18 feature films and 10 short films, a collection of some of the best groundbreaking documentary films from around the world.
03/29/2009 DREYER FILM SERIES AND PARTY IN APRIL - Danish Film Fest + CINEFAMILY co-presented a series of Dreyer films.
Danish Film Fest hosted an after party, sponsored by Carlsberg. It was a great success
The films were showing at the Historic Silent Movie Theatre:
Day of Wrath (1943)
Ordet / The Word (1955)
Gertrud (1964)
Vampyr (1932) ++ afterparty: Sponsored by CARLSBERG Beer
Dreyer sees what only movies have - the ability to watch times and spaces shift fluidly as shadows and gives us movies, like life, in every way in constant flux.....
ABOUT DREYER:
CARL THEODOR DREYER made only 14 full-length feature films in a career spanning almost 50 years, but they are among the most intensely wrought works in the history of the cinema. Dreyer's films have always been much admired by critics, theorists and filmmakers for the way in which they generate a luminous beauty with artfully constructed sets, deep respect for period detail and a masterly ability to conjure up an empathy for physical and emotional suffering.
Peering under the surface of Dreyer's controlled and strictly organized cinema exposes consistencies of a deeply rooted psychological nature. These fuse into his film's heterogeneous styles whether he was experimenting in the genres of drama, comedy or horror. His character's conflicts were often based in personal moral spheres - occasionally religious crises - overlapping onto society's more conventional and ethically centered interpretations. Austere expressions of human suffering figured prominently in his sporadic oeuvre. His narratives frequently evolved stalwart, virtuous and martyr-like female figures, who were intensely oppressed and/or devoutly prepared to surrender themselves for a perceived moral betterment. Dreyer's meticulous attention to detail imbued his film language with a profound transcendental quality, marking him as not only the greatest director ever to emerge from Denmark but as a prominent, and universally recognized, master of cinema.
Supporters of Danish Film Fest Dreyer Series:
STUDIO DENMARK: www.studio-denmark.com
CARLSBERG
SCANDINAVIAN AMERICAN ARTS FOUNDATION: www.scanamarts.org.
02/05/2009 Danish Filmmakers Are a Hit Abroad! - Danish Film Fest congratulates Lone Scherfig on An Education. It won two prizes at Sundance. Fantastic film. We also congratulate Nicolas Winding Refn for his direction of Bronson - amazing film. We feel it should have won a prize or two. Burma-VJ won best editing at Sundance - a fantastic documentary. We are proud of the Danish film makers who ventures outside Denmark this past year.
11/09/2008 AFI FEST...Danish Film Fest opening a smash! - Well, it was a toss up. Should I attend a screening of the Wrestler (Mickey Rourke) - and determine for myself if the Oscar-buzz rumors were true - or mix and mingle with filmmakers at the opening night soiree for the Danish Film Festival kicking off last night? Fortunately, I chose the latter.... read full article
