UK production, financing and sales studio Anton is launching world sales at Cannes on Niels Arden Oplev’s upcoming thriller, Thirty Three.
Danish filmmaker Oplev, who directed the original version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, as well TV series Vikings: Valhalla and Mr Robot, will helm the feature with a cast including Mark Strong and Paula Beer, who won the Berlianle Silver Bear for her role in Christian Petzold’s Undine. The screenplay is by Tom Butterworth and Chris Hurford.
It is is based on the true story of Josef Hartinger, deputy prosecutor in Germany’s Weimar Republic in 1933. When tasked with investigating the deaths of three men at a recently established prison, Dachau, Hartinger, played by Strong, suspects something darker lurks behind the guards’ refusal to cooperate. He teams up with young lawyer Elisabeth Eichhorn, played by Beer, and medical examiner Mauritz Flamm to seek answers.
It is produced by the UK’s Cuba Pictures and Anton and financed by Anton. Producers are Sebastien Raybaud and Callum Grant for Anton, and Dixie Linder and Nick Marston for Cuba Pictures. It starts shooting later this year in Europe and on location in Germany.
“Thirty Three will be a compelling and suspenseful detective story set in the time of the crumbling Weimar Republic,” said Oplev. ” Every day the authoritarian government is getting stronger and more deadly. It is an unknown story about three heroes trying to bring justice for the first victims of the most murderous regime the world has ever witnessed. Hartinger, Elisabeth and Flamm are up against a ticking clock.
”Thirty Three will be a character driven film about the courage they must find and the personal cost that the three of them must endure. It holds many parallels to our time, in which democracies are increasingly under pressure,” said Oplev.
Grant added: “What will make this film stand out is just how contemporary its characters and atmosphere feel. It is set in a moment prior to so many of the stories we encounter from this era, a moment in which a progressive society is very suddenly and aggressively shifting toward something uglier and brutal. We have no doubt that this creative team’s approach to the true story of Josef Hartinger will make for timeless, provocative, character-driven cinema.”
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