Tobias Lindholm to direct Afghanistan film

Danish director Tobias Lindholm, who won several awards for his Somali pirate drama A Hijacking (Kapringen), will next make The War (Krigen), about the military action in Afghanistan.

The film will conclude the trilogy of “desperate men in small rooms,” which Lindholm launched with the prison drama, R (co-directed by Michael Noer in 2010).

Danish actor Pilou Asbæk, who was is in hopeless situations in both R and Kapringen – as a young prisoner and as a ship’s cook taken hostage – will also star in The War, as a soldier on mission in Afghanistan.

The last part of the trilogy will be produced by Tomas Radoor and René Ezra for Nordisk Film Production (also credited for R, Kapringen), and shooting will start early next year.

Nordisk confirmed that the themes of the film will cover democracy, violence, the cost of war and the rules of the game, according to Danish film magazine Ekko.

Originally an scriptwriter, who collaborated with Danish director Thomas Vinterberg on Submarino, The Hunt (Jagten) and upcoming The Collective (Kollektivet), and Søren Kragh-Jacobsen on The Hour of the Lynx (I lossens time), Lindholm had his international break when A Hijacking received its world premiere at last year’s Venice and later screened in Toronto.

Most recently selected for a special screening at the United Nations’ World Refugee Day in Nairobi, the film about the cargo ship, MV Bozen, which is captured by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean, has been sold worldwide including the US (Magnolia Pictures), the UK (Arrow Films) and France (Ad Vitam) by Denmark’s TrustNordisk.