The sophomore film from Danish director Martin Skovbjerg is being produced by Snowglobe with backing from Nordisk Film & TV Fond.
Snowglobe’s production trio Eva Jakobsen, Katrin Pors and Mikkel Jersin had worked earlier with rising director Skovbjerg on his break-out debut Stick & Stones (2018) which screened at the BFI London Film Festival and Montreal’s Nouveau Cinema Festival among others.
His new film Copenhagen Doesn’t Exist (Københaven finds ikke) is based on a script by Joachim Trier’s long-time collaborator Eskil Vogt, who was inspired by the book ‘Sander’ by author Terje Holtet Larsen.
“Eskil Vogt had the idea to make Terje Holtet Larsen’s book into a film. He read it while still at Film School and was immediately touched by its beauty and cruelty and felt it could make a touching and original movie,” said the producers. Vogt developed the script on and off, while writing for Trier and making his own directorial debut Blind, until Snowglobe and Skovbjerg convinced him to team up with them on Copenhagen Doesn’t Exist.
The starting point for the story is the sudden disappearance of a young woman, without a trace. Three months later her boyfriend agrees to an unusual arrangement: to be locked in an apartment and interrogated by the woman’s father. It soon becomes obvious that even long before her disappearance, the two lovers had chosen a strange and unconventional life: cut off from the world, isolated in the middle of the big city.
In the title roles are Jonas Holst Schmidt, Angela Bundalovic (The Rain), Zlatko Buric (Pusher). Christopher Læssø (The Square) and Vilmer Trier Brøgger (Darkness-Those Who Kill, Sticks & Stones).
TrustNordisk’s managing director Susan Wendt said: “The project has an intriguing mystique and thrill to it that we cannot wait to see more of.“
The film is co-produced by Oslo Pictures, Zentropa Sweden and Don't Look Now, with support from the Danish Film Institute, the Norwegian Film Institute, the Swedish Film Institute, Nordisk Film & TV Fond, Eurimages, The EU Media Programme, in collaboration with DR, SVT and TrustNordisk.