EXCLUSIVE: Northern Lights Studios is lining up a contemporary adaptation of Babette’s Feast, Gabriel Axel’s 1987 Danish Oscar-winning fable about a stranger’s exquisite talents that breathe life into a pious household.
The project will build on the original’s themes of generosity, sacrifice and transformation and takes place in rural Minnesota, where two aging sisters take in a refugee whose presence and unexpected gifts reshapes the rigid lives they have built around faith and duty.
Hacks and The Mindy Project writer Guy Branum is adapting the screenplay based on the short story by Karen Blixen. LA-based Northern Lights co-founders Christian D. Bruun and Asger Hussain are producing alongside Josi Konski and have begun a director search.
“Babette’s Feast is one of those rare pieces of material that feels both timeless and urgent,” said Bruun and Hussain, who launched their film and television company earlier this year with co-founder Henrik Fisker. “At its core, it is a story about generosity, faith and the transformative power of human connection, ideas that feel increasingly relevant in a world that has grown more divided and inward-looking.”
The Northern Lights executives paid tribute to the original film’s late producer Benni Korzen, who provided support and insights for the new project.
Babette’s Feast was first published in 1958 and spawned the Danish winner of what was then known as the foreign language Oscar 30 years later.
The original film was situated in the Danish community of Jutland in the 19th century, where a French refugee from the Franco-Prussian War arrives to work as the cook for a pair of religious sisters and transforms their lives when she uses lottery winnings to prepare a banquet.
Northern Lights Studios is backed by Bo. H. Holmgreen, who serves as executive producer on Babette’s Feast alongside Branum and Zack Freedman.
Bruun served as executive producer on The End, directed by Joshua Oppenheimer. Hussain was a longtime executive at Lee Daniels Entertainment and worked on Precious and The Paperboy.
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