On Monday, April 18 at 6pm*, CALA will screen The Hunt, a Danish movie directed by Thomas Vinterberg and starring Mads Mikkelson who is currently playing Hannibal Lecter on NBC’s hit show Hannibal.
The Hunt is a dark and complicated movie – evocative of most Danish TV productions over the past 10 years. Forbrydelsen, Borgen, and Bron/Broen were all made by Denmark’s public-service broadcaster, DR (http://www.dr.dk/) which was established by an act of parliament in 1926. For American TV audiences Forbrydelsen (the crime) transformed into the critically acclaimed series The Killing; Bron/Broen into The Bridge. Borgen, a political drama starring Sidse Babett Knudsen as Birgitte Nyborg, the country’s first female prime minister, was so good it was compared to Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing by US critics – tak but no tak!
Netflix is currently streaming two seasons of Dicte which is about a crime reporter who, after divorce, returns to her hometown and immediately gets into trouble with the law. My favorite criticisms of the show were the complaints that most of the actors’ Copenhagen accents were not authentic for a show set in Aarhus. Perhaps Dorte Tulet, who teaches Danish at the Center for Applied Liberal Arts and who will be the moderator on April 18, will have a few moments to discuss some of Denmark’s wonderful television too. More shows to keep an eye out for are Klovn, Arvingerne, and Rita.
*The screening takes place at the National Opera Center, 330 7th Avenue, New York, NY. RSVP here
by Anne Maguire