OUT OF COMPETITION

Vertiges

Bastarden

Nikolaj Arcel
2023 - Denmark / Sweden / Norway - 2h07
int. -12 ans

Screenings : friday 26 - 7:30 pm - Pathé - 1

Denmark, 1755. Captain Ludvig Kahlen sets out to conquer a Danish heath reputed to be uncultivable, with an impossible goal: to establish a colony in the name of the king, in exchange for a royal title. A single-minded ambition that the ruthless lord of the region will relentlessly seek to put down. Kahlen's fate hangs in the balance: will his endevours bring him wealth and honour, or cost him his life...?

In 2001, Danish screenwriter and director Nikolaj Arcel presented Help, My Step-Father's a Monster at the Festival, which went on to win the European School Film Audience Award. He won the prize again the following year for Woyzecks sidste symfoni (Woyzeck's Last Symphony). The film En kongelig affære (A Royal Affair), which he made in 2012, was an international success and won several awards, including two in Berlin. Bastarden (The Promised Land) is his return to Denmark after a stint in Hollywood and the direction of The Dark Tower based on a story by Stephen King. “When I became a father a few years ago, which changed me profoundly, I began to look at my old films, including the memories of making them, through new eyes. Although I'm still proud of my work (most of it, anyway!), it reflects the vision of a man who has only got a single goal: a passionate dedication to storytelling and art... but little else. The Promised Land was born of this existential observation and is by far my most personal film to date. With the help of Ida Jessen's brilliant novel, Anders Thomas Jensen and I wanted to tell a great epic story about how our ambitions and desires inevitably fail if they are the only things we have. Life is a painful and unpleasant, beautiful and extraordinary chaos that we often cannot control. As the saying goes, ‘we make plans and God laughs'.”

CAST AND CREW

Cast : Mads Mikkelsen, Gustav Lindh, Amanda Collin, Jacob Lohmann, Kristine Kujath Thorp, Morten Hee Andersen
Screenplay : Nikolaj Arcel, Anders Thomas Jensen
Cinematography : Rasmus Videbæk
Editing : Olivier Bugge Coutté
Music : Dan Romer

Production : Zentropa Entertainments

French distributor : The Jokers