EXCLUSIVE: Asger Hussain and Christian D Bruun of Los Angeles-based Northern Lights Studios are in Cannes with their inaugural slate based on Nordic properties, led by a remake of Babette’s Feast and a feature about the 20th century Denmark-based American painter William H Johnson.
Northern Lights is understood to be the first US company to invest development funds specifically in existing and original Nordic IP. The producers will team up with financiers and co-production partners and access Scandinavian public funds in service of film and TV projects in English or Scandinavian languages that will shoot inside or outside the region.
The pair have been in Cannes to meet producers and financiers and discuss a slate of more than 20 titles. They are scouting sales agents on Babette’s Feast, a contemporary English-language take on Gabriel Axel’s 1988 Danish Oscar winner, set in rural Minnesota and based on Hacks writer Guy Branum’s adapted screenplay.
The development slate includes Closer To The Sun (working title), a feature about Johnson, the Black painter who moved to Denmark to live with his Danish wife, ceramist Holcha Krake. “He’s being rediscovered in the US,” says Bruun, who served as an executive producer on Joshua Oppenheimer’s The End. “It’s a very empowering story.”
Northern Lights is producing with Reggie Rock Bythewood and the project will be set in Denmark, Norway and the US.
“The [Scandinavian] system has created giants and we’re standing on the shoulders of those giants,” says Hussain, a former Lee Daniels Entertainment executive who worked on Precious and The Paperboy.
Bruun adds: “We would love to do films that go beyond the scope of what government funding can do initially. We can mix it up and bring American actors to Scandinavia, or we bring Scandinavian actors to the US and film here.”
Northern Lights was co-founded by the automotive entrepreneur Henrik Fisker and is backed by Danish investor Bo H Holmgreen, the president and CEO of Viking Sunset Studios Bali. The partners are aiming to collaborate with other producers and investors on projects budgeted at up to $25m, assembled through equity, public funding, and sales.
“Anything beyond that requires an upfront studio sale, which takes away the incentive for us to fund development,” says Hussain. “Development has traditionally been the riskiest part of building projects. We focus on it because as producers we see that’s where the value comes from.”
They are looking to make a western, a couple of Scandinavia-set action features in the vein of Die Hard, and several films about the Cold War.
The partners are also developing The Elsinore Crossing, a six-part English-language TV series set during the Second World War that is written by Ole Bornedal, whose feature writing-directing credits include Deliver Us From Evil and Nigthwatch.
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