Peter Aalbæk Jensen Movies

Anna (Ann Eleonora Jørgensen of Italian for Beginners) has just been hired as the chaplain at a women's prison. Inexperienced, but compassionate and energetic, she begins to feel her way amongst the prisoners. Soon, a new prisoner, Kate (Trine Dyrholm of The Celebration), is transferred to the prison and causes a stir. Marion (Sonja Richter of Open Hearts), a junkie, has heard that Kate helped another prisoner get clean and goes to her when her fellow prisoner and dealer, Jossi (Sarah Boberg), cuts her off. Marion kicks heroin, and believes that the introspective Kate has healed her. When Anna gets wind of this, she goes to see Kate, but Kate doesn't want to talk to her. She's even a bit hostile, telling Anna to look after herself and the baby in her belly. Anna believes herself infertile after fruitlessly trying to have a child with her loving husband, Frank (Lars Ranthe). She's shocked to discover that she is actually pregnant, but her joy turns to dismay when she learns that the fetus may have a serious birth defect. Meanwhile, Henrik (Nicolaj Kopernikus), a mild-mannered guard, finds himself increasingly drawn to Kate, to the point of putting his job in jeopardy, while the ruthless Jossi, losing business, feels threatened by the strange new inmate. Writer/director Annette K. Olesen and co-writer Kim Fupz Aakeson made In Your Hands in the Dogme style, shooting on video at Nyborg State Prison. The film was shown at the 2004 Berlin International Film Festival and selected by the Film Society of Lincoln Center for inclusion in New Directors/New Films. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

Directed by Elisabeth Rygaard, Omfan mig mane (aka House of Hearts) centers on a poverty-ridden Turkish rural family. Tired of putting up with abuse from his spiteful father, Ali sets off with his wife and two small children in hopes of building a house of their own. Debt, however, forces Ali to become a guest worker in Denmark. The story is mostly told in flashbacks from Ali's son's point-of-view. Omfan mig mane features Bora Akkas, Mazlum Cimen, Sebnem Kostern, and Serra Yilmaz. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

An estranged couple are brought back together as they run for their lives in a future world where science as well as emotions have gone haywire in this sci-fi drama from director Thomas Vinterberg. In the year 2021, the world seems to have become a very strange place; an unexplained ailment is causing children to drop dead on the streets of New York, ice storms and floods strike major cities without notice, summer is marked by periodic snowfalls, and a strange hole has appeared in the Ugandan sky that causes people to loose the grip of gravity and drift off into space. In the midst of all this, internationally known figure skater Elena (Claire Danes) is getting divorced from her husband John (Joaquin Phoenix) after an 18-month separation. John has arrived in New York City to have Elena sign the divorce papers, but after finally making his way through her entourage, he discovers her to be unhappy and out of sorts, and she asks him to stay. John soon learns that Elena and her staff have a secret -- David (Alun Armstrong), her manager, has had Elena cloned, and now there are three duplicates of her to stand in if she should be killed or injured. John's discovery puts both him and Elena in grave danger, and they are soon on the run from David and his underlings. Meanwhile, Marciello (Sean Penn) ponders the unstable state of the world as he flies from one place to another after a heroic dose of pills designed to combat the fear of flying. It's All About Love received its North American premier at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Aage Rais-Nordentoft's coming-of-age drama Kick 'n Rush concerns three friends who bond over soccer. Their relationship hits a rocky patch when Jakob puts the moves on a girl that Mikkel has loved from afar. While this is going on, Bo begins to garner attention for his superior football skills. Their jealousy and resentment begins to tear them apart from each other. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

Two female drifters search for their next short-term jobs and for the reasons their lives have been filled with such wanderlust in Søren Kragh-Jacobsen's modern-day romantic fable Skagerrak. Best friends Marie (Iben Hjejle) and Sophie (Bronagh Gallagher) land on the Scottish mainland after a stint working on an oil rig, eager to move on to their next adventure. Just as Sophie decides to head to Glasgow to track down her mechanic boyfriend, the pair are set back after a one-night stand leaves Sophie severely beaten and robbed. While tending to Sophie at the hospital, Marie encounters a strange older man (James Cosmo) who later invites her to his estate while proclaiming to have an irresistible proposition for her. The old man, Sir Robert Lumley, offers to pay several thousands of pounds to Marie if she will agree to become a surrogate mother for his childless son and daughter-in-law. Initially disgusted, Marie reluctantly consents but struggles with the decision throughout her pregnancy. When a worse tragedy strikes the wanderers, Marie is forced to confront a number of issues in her life as she also finds both an unexpected love interest and an unexpected ally from the Scottish estate she has grown to hate. ~ Ryan Shriver, All Movie Guide

A teenager abandoned by her family slips into a downward spiral of sex and degradation in this frank drama from Sweden. Lilya (Oksana Akinshina) is a 16-year-old girl growing up in poverty in the former Soviet Union. Lilya's mother (Lyubov Agapova) is moving to the United States with her new boyfriend, and Lilya has been told she'll be coming with them. However, at the last minute Lilya is informed she'll be staying behind with her aunt Anna (Liliya Shinkaryova), and she'll be joining her mother later on. Anna immediately takes over the apartment Lilya shared with her mother, and moves her niece into a much smaller (and dirtier) flat several blocks away. For the most part left on her own, Lilya spends much of her time with her best friend, Natasha (Elina Benenson), and comes to the rescue of Volodya (Artiom Bogucharski), a suicidal 14-year-old boy who has been thrown out of his home and has a serious problem with alcohol and drugs. One night at a nightclub, Natasha meets a man who is willing to pay her for sex; when her father finds the money, Natasha claims it belongs to Lilya, and the story soon spreads that Lilya is a prostitute. When Lilya learns that her mother has no intention of bringing her to the United States, she becomes despondent and begins sleeping with men for money. Not long after taking up the sex trade she meets Andrei (Pavel Ponomaryov), who promises her a better and easier life if she'll come to Sweden with him. However, Lilya learns the hard way that there's no truth in Andrei's words as she is subjected to the lowest and most degrading levels of the sex-for-hire business. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Two people are brought together by a tragic accident in this emotional drama. Joachim (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) and Cecilie (Sonja Richter) are a couple in Copenhagen who've fallen deeply in love and have made plans to marry. One day, Joachim is severely injured in an auto accident when he's struck by a woman named Marie (Paprika Steen), leaving him paralyzed from the neck down. As fate would have it, the doctor put in charge of Joachim's care is Niels (Mads Mikkelsen), who happens to be Marie's husband. Joachim, deeply depressed since the accident, tells Cecilie to leave him and find someone else, but while she intends to stay with the man she loves, she finds it increasingly difficult to deal with his mood swings and frequent anger. Meanwhile, Marie, wracked with guilt over the accident, asks her husband to look after Cecilie, and as they spend more and more time together, they find themselves becoming increasingly attracted. Eventually, Cecilie and Niels become lovers, leaving them both to deal with their betrayal of the people they've sworn to stand by. Filmed following the austere guidelines of the Dogma 95 movement, Open Hearts received its North American premier at the 2002 Toronto Film Festival and was screened in competition at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Directed by R.D. Robb, the largely unreleased Don's Plum made headlines throughout the late '90s for featuring Leonardo DiCaprio, who, after scoring big with the success of Titanic, was enjoying the top spot on young Hollywood's A-list. The film stars DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire as two of several obnoxious rich kids whittling the night away at Don's Plum, a local diner. Shot in black-and-white and largely improvised, the kids speak candidly about women, sex, drugs, and the nuances of relationships -- if by "nuances" one means adultery, masturbation, bisexuality, and whatever shock-topics the moment may have called for. Maguire and DiCaprio claimed to have worked in Plum free of charge on the condition that it would not be made into a feature release, and promptly sued Robb for distribution rights after it was, indeed, stretched into a 90-minute film. Though the young actors successfully blocked Don's Plum from release among American and Canadian audiences, it was shown internationally, albeit without much success. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

Ulf Malmros directs this warm comedy-drama about four loners learning to love again. A pair of young orphans, Marten (Anastasios Soulis) and Annika (Rebecka Scheja journey to a small village during the summer of 1958 to stay with crusty middle-aged Yngve (Kjell Bergqvist), who works both as a farmer and an undertaker. Though gruff and often grumpy, the two kids soon realize that Yngve still has a lot of love to give, and they set out to help him meet a woman. They happen upon Miss Svanstrom (Cecilia Nilsson), and before long Yngve and Miss Svanstrom are an item. That is, until the richest man in the village tries to foil their newfound happiness. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide