Else Petersen

To what extent does a director stay objective and anonymously hidden behind the camera? The Danish director Jon Bang Carlsen knows for sure that the choices he makes in his films aren’t accidental. Several excerpts from his own work show that events in his personal life have a major influence on his work. In fact, he appears to be using images that he recognizes in particular. It’s a revelation for this filmmaker, who used to think he could stay objective and invisible. Topics such as doubting his faith, his runaway father and impressions from a carefree childhood are recurring themes in his diverse oeuvre. Showing us individual scenes, Carlsen comments in voice-over on the images and muses about his life and work.

In 1945 Germany, following the end of World War II, Leopold Kessler, an American of German descent, is hired by his uncle as a sleeping car conductor on the Zentropa train line. Leopold's wish is to be neutral to the ongoing purges of loyalists by Allied forces and do what he can to help a hurting country, but ultimately finds himself being used by both sides.

At The Kingdom, Denmark's most technologically advanced hospital, a number of strange and otherworldly events begin occurring, much to the dismay of its doctors and patients. A ghostly ambulance appears and disappears, the voice of a little girl calls to a patient in an elevator shaft, and a doctor's fetus begins growing at an alarming rate.

Family drama set in the Danish countryside in the turn of the century. A wealthy landowner is an evil and corrupt womaniser with several illegitimate offspring in addition to his beautiful family. Nobody stands up to him except his feisty 17-year-old daughter.

Farcial action fun with Bertil and Hugo, who do menial jobs at a big city hotel. Bertil is about to marry and has put money aside for his bride's morning gift. Only Hugo has kind of borrowed the money and blown it all on a wrong bet in a pigeon race. Together, they obviously have to get rich quick. When a diamond seems to be lying around for the taking, the hotel is virtually on its head.

Per is a traveling man who makes a living setting up new campsites—financed by a rather clueless telephone company and a gawking power plant. Søren has been in prison for eight years for bank robbery—but now he is free and ready to retrieve the buried money. To his great despair, he sees the campsite right where the loot is buried. Together with his greedy girlfriend and her four children, he tries to come up with a plan – but it will take a lot of imagination to get hold of the money.

A French housekeeper with a mysterious past brings quiet revolution in the form of one exquisite meal to a circle of starkly pious villagers in late 19th century Denmark.

In a small two-room apartment in a backyard in Vesterbro, Copenhagen, 14-year-old Ester lives with her father, mother, and older brother Carl. It is a typical working-class neighborhood of the time, and the apartment lacks any modern conveniences. Coal must be fetched from a dark basement where homeless people have sought shelter and lodging for the night. Ester is a dreamer. She wants to be a writer and secretly writes poetry. She often loses track of time and place when her thoughts wander.

Benny and Arnold are homeless and along with others living on Nørrebro in Copenhagen. The police is set to clear the building they squat in, but on the night of the forced eviction, local acid head Spacy jumps from the sixth floor.

A comedy about the everydaylife of the 30-year-old something nurse Henriette and her life. Her boyfriend is boring and she has an affair with a violent doctor. She shares an apartment with a gay man and she is close with her brother who is a somewhat insecure and love-seeking guy. However, after some unfortunate clashes with the world, Henriette realizes she is able to stand on her own.

Nikolaj Christensen is a popular Danish folk-rock artist. In this teen-oriented film, Christian (Christensen) is a young man in search of love, who restlessly leaves his home in Denmark to search for it all over Europe, finally finding some semblance of it in Morocco. This slight film is directed by Gabriel Axel, who also directed Babette's Feast. It is likeliest to be of interest to fans of the star and his music, which is used throughout.

For Janus his friend Tore is his big ideal: pretty, intelligent and self-confident. Janus is grateful for his friendship even though he is considered the court jester. When Tore falls in love with the beautiful and sweet girl Helle, Janus accepts his role as their highly loved third party. Helle's fashionable mother, however, is a bit too interested in Tore. Written by Allan Simonsen

During a production of "Hamlet", the withdrawn lead actor and the girl playing Ophelia, who has just escaped a life of drugs and prostitution, spark an unlikely and low-key romance.

Karl Åge and Regitze host a summer garden party for close friends, their son, and his family. Karl Åge is quiet, detached; Regitze is spirited, lively. He thinks back: love at first sight during the war, living together unmarried, her mother's hunger strike when they won't baptize their son. Regitze is passionate and forthright; she speaks her mind. He remembers her inviting a derelict for Christmas dinner, and the man shows up with five bashful friends. He recalls her taking on their son's teacher when the man slaps the lad. He remembers her love of dancing and his fear that his social clumsiness might end their relationship. Now, in twilight, he has other things to face.

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FINAL ACT is based on Noel Coward's play "Waiting in the Wings". Even the smallest events turn into mind-blowing dramas at The Set, a retirement home for former actresses in England. Jealousy and madness flare into a firework display of toxicity when ex-primadonna Lotta Henderson (Birgitte Federspiel) moves in. A slap in the face of The Set's leading star in her own eyes, May Davenport (Mime Fønss), who has had a lifelong rivalry with Lotta both on stage and off. The daily dramas reach dizzying heights when a scandalous journalist (Anne Marie Helger) gains access like a wolf in sheep's clothing. A stunt that has a not-so-clever connection to the ladies' burning desire to be granted a veranda. The matter is raised to the highest level of the home's tough board of directors, and The Set's secretary Perry (Holger Juul Hansen) comes under justified suspicion of skulduggery. But this is where May Davenport's diva talent comes in as a sure trump card...

A woman finds herself in a crisis situation after being divorced and having lost her job. Images from her subconscious emerge, activated by childhood memories and confrontations with other women, especially her mother and sister.

Drama about a young woman who is diagnosed with cancer. We follow her journey and her relationship with her husband and their two children until she dies.

Based on Leif Panduro's 1958 satire classic. David, a senior high-school student, aims a swift kick at his principal's behind and is committed to a psychiatric ward from the perspective of which he takes a close look at his allegedly sane family. They, of course, are the real loonies. The psychiatrists are worse. Only lovely class-mate Lis is down-to-earth and trustworthy.

Mølleby is a small, cozy market town. The year is 1924, and the sight of a Rolls Royce from Copenhagen is a sensation. But all is not as idyllic as it seems. The town's new mayor is trying to build a new brickworks to ensure the town's growth and future, but the previous mayor is doing everything he can to thwart these ambitious plans...

Ole Ernst stars as an energetic conman lured into trying to set a factory on fire to catch in on the insurance. The plan backfires and both the factory owner, his wife and the conman hunted by the police must flee to Sweden.

A festive crime comedy about a confused innkeeper who involuntarily finds himself becoming entangled in a larger crime-affair where the villains have stolen and smuggled a precious diamond baked in a cake ...

Heavily influenced by the French stage sensation La Cage Aux Folles (which was filmed the very same year) a drag-queen comedy about a group of homosexuals sharing an apartment with a naive but straight country boy did not live up to expectations. The lead characters lead boring lives during the day and, as depicted here, downright pathetic existences at night, all decked out in peacock plumes and high heels and with nowhere to go.

Clumsy secret agent Jensen (aka Agent 69) must deliver secret formula for new revolutionary fuel source to Western agents. Instead, he mistakenly gives it to a random kid, so now both him and evil rogue agent Scorpio go after the kid.

Elderly sisters write a tell-all erotic memoir that threatens to undermine a nasty nobleman.

Secret Albanian rocket plans worth 10 million have been stolen - and Albanian, Chinese, Russian and Danish agents vie to recover them.

The town's wealthy benefactor dies, and leaves a bizarre bequest: unless one of the self-righteous citizens can produce an illegitimate child in 9 1/2 months, all his money goes to homeless cats, and they must start paying taxes.

The third film about the two good-natured brothers Søren and Peter and their family on the small island of Bomø. This time, the brothers have acquired a soccer-loving dog named Bølle, who turns out to be able to predict the results of betting pools. This causes chaos in the betting service, on Bomø, and at Christiansborg.

Newly married to a sexually perverted German millionaire, Siv submits herself to endless degradation before discovering that her husband harbors a diabolical secret.

Five young people take part in a party. During the party, a man is hit and killed nearby. The driver flees. The next day, one of the young people cannot remember anything about the time surrounding the accident. Is he the perpetrator? A witness leads the police on the trail.

One Saturday evening, Trine prepares dinner for her boyfriend Hans. Unfortunately, Hans is delayed, as on his way between Frihavnen and Valby, he encounters a series of individuals whom he feels compelled to wait for in various ways. Back at the club apartment, Trine decides to transform the romantic dinner into a kitchen party for her friends.

The German bear Fido from Münich is sweet, easygoing and nice, and just loves Danish soldiers. Thus, the bear marches together with the recruits and even wants to share their beds in this strange Danish comedy.

It's not just eels and rubber boots that Søren and Peter catch when they fish in waters teeming with smugglers... The parish council is against serving alcohol at the inn, but luckily for them, brothers Søren and Peter often catch both whisky and cigarettes when they go fishing. The naive brothers believe that their catch is lost property. The parish council chairman, on the other hand, is so tired of the two constantly knocking on doors that he asks them to give away their catch. And then things might start to happen. Not least at the nursing home. But one day, it all comes to an end. The police and customs authorities invade the idyllic Bomø, and all hell breaks loose for the two unfortunate fishermen...

Winnie's mother is going to Bangkok to settle an inheritance matter and is looking for a good boarding house for her child. She calls Dr. Linager, who tells her that he has a boarding house for "expensive children," but the price is no object to Winnie's mother. When Winnie shows up, the good Dr. Linager is a little surprised. He is a veterinarian and thought he was going to be looking after a Siamese cat, but everyone in the house naturally welcomes the charming little Winnie.

Three girls (around 20 years old) who have grown up in different parts of Denmark get a strange letter. It turns out they are sisters, and will inherit from their late mother, if the can stay together one month in the same house. They end up in a lot of (romantic) trouble, because of speculations of who their father(s) might be.

In the charming old Copenhagen neighborhood of Nyboder lives a group of quirky and distinctive characters. Among them is Albertine, who one day is visited by her young niece Ditte, who has run away from a strict upbringing at home. She has fallen in love with her dance teacher Johny, who, however, is not very keen on surrendering to the young woman's charms. Fortunately, circumstances bring the two closer together.

A young, beautiful girl arrives at Krogerød Kro on Mols and shocks the innkeeper by telling him that he is her father. At the same time, the inn is about to lose its liquor license, threatening its very existence. The innkeeper tells the girl that both he and his friend from his military days have paid child support to her, as no one knew which of them was her real father.

At Helene Dragstrup's 20th birthday, her grandmother Margrethe decides that it is time that Helene learns something about life outside the protective walls of the estate.

Two young skippers, Hans Tønnesen and Poul Nielsen, have a small cargo ship that transports freight from Copenhagen to the provinces. Poul and Hans are in love with the same girl, Margit, who is the daughter of master baker Bonnekamp. However, Margit chooses Poul. On their wedding night, Hans cannot sleep. He sits in his boat and hears a splash in the water. He jumps into the water and rescues a young girl, Kristiane, from drowning. She is distraught because she is pregnant and does not dare tell her parents. Hans offers to marry her and acknowledge paternity, but on the way to his own wedding, his engine stalls.

Else and her husband want a child but Else can't have one following an abortion performed before she got married. When Jytte, her friend, a salesgirl who is the mistress of a married man, tells her she is pregnant, Else thinks she has worked things out: along with her husband she will adopt the unwanted child. But things turn out differently since Jytte decides to keep the newborn the moment she sets eyes on it.

Tove (Bodil Kjer) is a modest and ordinary girl dreaming of winning the competition to become the next big movie star. She applies with a photo of her more beautiful sister Grete (Gerda Neumann). The competition, however, is already rigged.

A woman is found strangled in her shop. Shortly after, another murder is committed. Perhaps the most terrifying is that the both girls' name is Sonja. The police is convinced it's the same killer and at each scene is heard a woman singing the same song. A song which is soon dubbed the 'murder melody.'

We are in a small Heurigen-Café in Vienna. The young singer Fritz Hertzgruber meets a young Danish writer, Jesper Ellekilde, and the two young people become friends immediately. Fritz has been to Denmark as a "Viennese child" and is now an enthusiastic member of the Viennese children's own club. The following evening, the club's annual draw for a trip to Denmark takes place, and Fritz is the lucky one - albeit by detours. Fritz and Jesper are accompanied to Denmark, where Fritz is very much looking forward to the reunion with his foster parents, the composer Emilius Andersen and his wife. They were the sweetest people to their Viennese child, and their home stands in Fritz's memory as the epitome of idyll and harmony.

The stout Axel Høegh is a forester on the Troldborg estate in South Zealand, where he lives with his daughter Anne, who runs the house, and his son Mogens, who serves as a forester candidate under his father, and who is engaged to a young girl, Ulla Kryger, who is employed at a Copenhagen advertising agency.

An actress and her lawyer husband are so busy that their maid becomes the real mother to their six year old boy and at one point causes consternation by taking the child away to her home village.