Denmark's Lone Scherfig is following her Berlin Silver Bear-winning Italian For Beginners with Wilbur Wants To Kill Himself, which started shooting on location in Glasgow on Monday March 4.

The director's first English-language film features a number of young UK actors including Jamie Sieves (Mean Machine) as the main character Wilbur, Adrian Rawlins (Harry Potter, Breaking The Waves) as his brother Harbour and Shirley Henderson (Harry Potter 2, Bridget Jones's Diary) as the love interest Alice.

The only Danish actor involved is hot local talent Mads Mikkelsen (I Am Dina, Shake It All About).

Scherfig co-wrote the script with the writer-director Anders Thomas Jensen, who made his directing debut with Flickering Lights and previously co-wrote films like Mifune, The King Is Alive and Soren Kragh-Jacobsen's upcoming Skagerrak.

Wilbur is produced by newcomer Sisse Graum Olsen for Zentropa Entertainments, and shoots in Glasgow for three weeks before returning to Zentropa's studios in FilmByen in Copenhagen for another five weeks.

It wraps on May 3 with an expected national release set for winter 2002. The $3.4m (DKR29m) budget is financed with Scottish Screen, Glasgow Film Fund, The Danish Film Institute, TV2 Denmark, SVT (SWE), Nordic Film & TV-Fund and Les Films Bu Losange (FRA). Gillian Berrie of Sigma Films acts as Scottish co-producer with Peter Aalbaek Jensen as executive producer.

Egmont-owned Nordisk Film Biografdistribution handles the Scandinavian distribution and Trust Film Sales international sales.

Topics