Alexander Payne is developing a Danish-language feature film that will shoot in Denmark and be 100% funded by European money.
Speaking to Screen at the Sarajevo Film Festival, Payne said he is yet to write the script but that he expected to qualify for certain European funding pots through his Greek citizenship.
He did not reveal plot or title details of the project, which would be the first European film for the Sideways and The Holdovers director. The director was previously attached to a Netflix film starring Mads Mikkelsen that was due to shoot in Denmark, Sweden and the US in 2019, until it fell apart shortly before production.
Payne also gave details on the French-language feature he is looking to write, to shoot in Paris. It will be based on Eric Konigsberg’s 2018 Vanity Fair article ‘The Chairmen’, which Payne said is “about rival antique chair dealers in Paris.”
“That’s looming out there,” said Payne of the project, and he noted that “it’s less hard to get theatrical real estate” in Europe.
Having touched on a potential Election sequel in his Sarajevo masterclass on Sunday, Payne said it was set up as a streaming film with Paramount for the film “a few years ago… because everybody sees more money in that”, but that he wants to change the deal for a theatrical release.
“The deal was conceived for streaming; I would want to change that,” said Payne. “I’d want theatrical.”
He confirmed Reese Witherspoon is attached to reprise her role as Tracy Flick, although he did not know if she will produce the film. Since Election was released in 1999, Witherspoon has established a successful career as a producer alongside her acting roles, with producer credits on Wild, Gone Girl and Where the Crawdads Sing. No other cast are attached to the Election sequel, Payne said.
Payne is back in Sarajevo for the third time, having first attended in 2005 for a screening of Sideways. “The fumes of the war were still quite present,” he recalled of that first trip. Payne said that the festival has since become “one of the biggest economic events not just in Bosnia but all of former Yugoslavia.”
“Twenty years later, the festival feels a bit more polished, but with no diminishment of intimacy and hospitality,” he said. “It’s very ‘sui generis’ [Latin for ‘of its own kind’]. It’s really unique [among festivals].”
Sarajevo runs until Friday, August 23.
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