With this Sundance Selects acquisition, North American moviegoers are poised to fully discover a series of films that has been thrilling audiences in Denmark over the past year. The distributor has picked up rights to hot Danish titles The Keeper Of Lost Causes and The Absent One, as well as the forthcoming A Conspiracy Of Faith. The films are all adaptations of the bestselling Department Q series of novels written by Jussi Adler-Olsen. The first two, directed by Mikkel Norgaard, have both been huge hits at the Danish box office. The Keeper Of Lost Causes sold more tickets than any other movie in the market in 2013 with 725K admissions and about $11M in receipts. Last month, The Absent One was released in local cinemas and shot to the top of the year´s chart with over $10M off 700K admissions. A Conspiracy Of Faith, which is currently in pre-production, is directed by A Royal Affair‘s Nikolaj Arcel who has also penned the adaptations of all of the Department Q movies.
The Zentropa-produced thrillers focus on chief detective Carl Mørck who´s banished to a basement office to run a cold case division. Nikolaj Lie Kaas (A Second Chance) and Fares Fares (Child 44, Zero Dark Thirty) star.
“Jussi Adler-Olsen´s thrilling Q Novels are a perfect fit for big screen adaptation,” says Jonathan Sehring, President of Sundance Selects/IFC Films. “We are thrilled to be bringing this successful Danish trilogy to American audiences.”
“We are very excited that our friends from Sundance Selects have picked up these three thrillers. With their great skills on theatrical releases and successful VOD-strategies, we feel confident that the films will reach a substantial audience in North America”, says TrustNordisk CEO Rikke Ennis.
Each of the films is produced by Louise Vesth, Jonas Bagger and Peter Ålbæk for the Zentropa Group in cooperation with TV 2 Danmark, ZDF German Television Network, ZDF Enterprises, TV4 Sverige, TV 2 Norge in co-production with Film i Väst. Nordisk Film handles distribution in the Nordic territories and TrustNordisk has international sales.