Two new foreign-language projects have tapped the Danish Film Institute's under-exploited funds. The two, both co-produced with Zentropa, are eligible for DFI support with a local minority co-production partner on board.

Holland's Els Vandevorst will produce Sea Of Silence for her Isabella Films to be directed by the Oscar-nominated Belgian Stijn Coninx (Daëns), based on a script by Jacqueline Epskamp. Zentropa's Lene Boerglum and Kaare Schmidt act as co-producers, just as Vandevorst has done on several Danish films like Dogville and It's All About Love.

A Dutch-Belgium-German and Danish $2.7m (DKR21m) project, Sea Of Silence is also backed by Eurimages and now the Danish Film Institute with $164,000 (Dkr1.3m). It stars Holland's Huub Stapel and Johanna Ter Steege.

Another $126,000 (Dkr1m) has been given to Bázo, a Norwegian-Swedish-Danish co-production between Nils Thomas Utsi's Norwegian Filbmagoahti and Mikael Olsen (One Hand Clapping) for Zentropa. The Saami-language film has already received $670,000 (Dkr5.3m) from the Norwegian Film Fund, and the Nordic Film & TV Fund and Eurimages has also contributed to the $1.7m (Dkr13.4m) budget.

The Danish Film Institute also backed two new Danish films, veteran Morten Arnfred's drama Lykkevej and newcomer Carsten Myllerup's youth thriller Midsummer, with $570,000 (DKR4.5m) each. Lykkevej is produced by Ake Sandgren and Lars Kjeldgaard for Nordisk Film Productions as the first in their low-budget, $1.1m (DKR8.5m) Director's Cut-films.

Midsummer is produced by Rasmus Thorsen and Tomas Hostrup-Larsen for their Cosmo Film and shoots in Sweden on a equally low $1.12m (DKR8.9m) budget. Both will be released in 2003.

Topics