Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt has been selected as Denmark’s official entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film.

The Hunt world premiered at Cannes International Film Festival last year, where it took home the Best Actor Award (Mads Mikkelsen), The Prize of the Ecumenical Jury and The Vulcain Prize for the Technical Artist (Charlotte Bruus Christensen).

It continued its festival life in Telluride, Toronto, Busan and London among others, winning the British Independent Film Award for Best International Independent Film, while Thomas Vinterberg and Tobias Lindholm received the European Film Award for Best Screenwriter.

TrustNordisk sold the film to nearly every territory in the world after its Cannes debut.

In Denmark, The Hunt became the second biggest opening local film in more than a decade in Danish cinemas and with close to 700,000 admissions it made it to the top five of most seen Danish films since 2000.

Directed by Thomas Vinterberg, who is currently in the UK shooting Far From the Madding Crowd with a cast lead by Carey Mulligan, Matthias Schoenaerts and Michael Sheen, The Hunt tells the story about a man fighting against a lie that threatens to destroy his life. It stars Mads Mikkelsen, who will next be seen starring as Hannibal Lecter in the second season of NBC’s series Hannibal.

The Hunt was produced by Sisse Graum Jørgensen and Morten Kaufmann for Zentropa Entertainments19 in co-production with Film i Väst and Zentropa International Sweden with support from The Danish Film Institute, Danish Broadcasting Corporation, Eurimages, Nordic Film & TV Fund, The Swedish Film Institute, Swedish Television and the MEDIA programme of the European Union.

The Academy will announce the nominations on Jan 16, 2014. The 86th Academy Awards ceremony will take place on March 2, 2014.