A few years ago names like Bille August, Lars von Trier and Lone Scherfig stood for quality films, for the international renown of the Danish film industry. Recently though, Danish film critics and producers rarely praise the industry. They speak of loss of quality, of lack of inspiration, of crisis. According to the Copenhagen Post even Lars von Trier lately stated he had run dry of good ideas.

 

“We probably should have looked more critically at our own success a bit sooner”, said Claus Ladegaard from the Danish Film Institute. “Often, as soon as someone discovers a particular way to make a film successful, others follow and then movies start resembling one another.”

 

The Danish public does not seem to share the harsh critique: Over the first six months in 2007, over 1.8 million cinema tickets were sold – 500.000 more than last year this time – and one-third were for Danish movies. But this success has much to do with the rainy summer, as museums also register record attendance.

 

For Kim Foss, manager of the Grand Theatre in Copenhagen, the crisis of the Danish film industry is more due to politicians taking wrong decisions in film support than to filmmakers lacking ideas. According to him there are a lot of high quality films which do not get funding because they are judged to be commercial failures. An appeal to minister of culture Brian Mikkelsen…

 

Source: The Copenhagen Post, July 20^th 2007