Writer-director Torben Skjoedt Jensen's The Tenth Muse about one of the world's greatest silent film stars, Denmark's Asta Nielsen (pictured), will have its world premiere at the first Copenhagen International Film Festival.

Asta Nielsen (1883-1972) was already one of the highest-paid and most popular stage actresses of her time, when she made her screen debut in Afgrunden (The Abyss) in 1910.

The film's director Urban Gad became the first of her five husbands, and followed her to Germany where she went on to become one of the true superstars of the silent screen.

She was nicknamed The Silent Muse and starred in almost 90 films until 1932, when she retired from the screen. Torben Skjoedt Jensen's The Tenth Muse is inspired by the true story of a journalist's attempt to interview the legend a few years before her death in 1972.

87 year-old veteran actress Vera Gebuhr (The Kingdom II) stars as Asta Nielsen, while Ole Lemmeke (Possessed) plays the journalist and Vivian Nielsen makes her film debut as the young Asta.

The Tenth Muse is produced by national broadcaster DR, which has yet to set a date for the film's release. However, it is unlikely that it will get a theatrical release domestically outside of the Copenhagen International Film Festival, which runs from August 13-20.

Jensen is acclaimed for his award-winning documentaries including My Metier (1995) about Carl Dreyer, Simon's Film (1999) and Tugt & Utugt (2001), and made his feature debut with Manden Som Ikke Ville Doe in 1999. Jensen is also finishing a documentary about Asta Nielsen.