Lone Scherfig, director of Denmark's foreign-language Oscar hopeful Italian For Beginners, is to make her first English-language film.
Vilbur Wants To Commit Suicide will be produced by newcomer Sisse Graum Olsen, who recently made her debut with Niels Arden Oplev's black comedy Chop Chop (Fukssvansen) for Zentropa. The film will shoot in Scotland from March 6 for two weeks before returning to Copenhagen for the remaining shoot.
Zentropa is currently negotiating the UK financing, with the Danish Film Institute expected to contribute to the $3.4m (DKR29m) budget. As yet the cast remains unconfirmed, except that it will not feature any Danish actors.
Behind its bleak title hides a romantic comedy about two brothers who take over the family's second-hand bookstore, while trying to survive Vilbur's many suicide attempts and unexpected love.
Scherfig co-wrote the script with writer-director Anders Thomas Jensen, who made his directing debut with Flickering Lights and previously co-wrote films like Mifune, The King Is Alive and Soren Kragh-Jacobsen's upcoming Skagerrak.
Veteran producer Ib Tardini (Italian For Beginners), who has been developing the film with the director, has left the project to Sisse Graum Olsen, in order to take on Per Fly's Arven (working title), the follow-up to his multiple award winning The Bench, which Tardini also produced.
No comments yet