Tanne formerly had Bille August attached. The project is one of 16 being presented at New Nordic Films Market in Haugesund.
Danish producer Regner Grasten is keeping his new star director Anne-Grethe Bjarup Riis busy: after her feature debut for Regner Grasten Film, ThisLife (Hvidsten Gruppen) has exceeded 765,000 admissions in Denmark, he has lined up two films for her to direct.
Bjarup Riis will take over Tanne, a biopic of Danish author Karen Blixen, which should originally have been made by Danish director Bille August. “Since we have had to postpone it to 2014, August is not available, so we keep it in the family,” said Grasten.
Scripted by Peter Asmussen, Tanne is one of the 16 projects presented at the Co-Production and Film Financing Market at New Nordic Films August 15-18, preceding the Norwegian International Film Festival in Haugesund August 18-23.
The film Tanne follows Blixen’s life till 1913, when at 28 she boards the ship for Africa where she would live for 18 years. Her Out of Africa was filmed by Sydney Pollack to win seven Academy Awards in 1986, and Gabriel Axel adapted her Babette’s Feast (Babettes gæstebud) to win Denmark’s first Oscar in 1988.
The reason for the delay is that in 2013 Bjarup Riis will direct another biopic for Grasten Tarok – Dannebrog on Four Legs (Tarok – Dannebrog på fire ben), about Denmark’s most famous … trotting horse, which came in first in 111 out of 156 races between 1975-1980.
“Talking about horse movies, Danish directors Jon Iversen and Alice O’Fredericks’ The Red Horses (De røde heste/1950) was seen by 2.3 million Danes. Less will do,” explained Grasten, who will the start the shoot of Jesper Nicolaj Christiansen’s script in April-May 2013.
He described the film as “not just an adventure of a chestnut colt running faster than the other horses, which became a national symbol in a time of uncertainty. It is a story of a little family from Skive that loved horses, of diligence and skill, of father and son.”
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