Anders W. Berthelsen Movies

A girl is torn between her faith and her feelings in this coming of age drama from Denmark. Sara Dahl (Rosalinde Mynster) is seventeen years old and has been raised in a family of strict Jehovah's Witnesses. Sara follows the tenets of the faith and often joins her family to distribute church literature door to door in hopes of attracting new converts. Despite the Dahl family's devotion to their church, there has been a great deal of tension in the household -- her father (Jens Jorn Spottag) has been unfaithful to her mother (Sarah Boberg), and while he's deeply contrite, she's unwilling to forgive him. One night, Sara goes out with some friends from school and they end up at a dance club where she meets a handsome boy named Teis (Pilou Asbaek). The two feel an immediate attraction to one another, and as Sara falls for Teis, she begins to encounter a world and ideas she's never considered before, and starts to question the doctrine that she's been taught since childhood. However, Sara's parents are uncomfortable with her relationship with Teis, and they discuss her new attitudes with John (Anders W. Berthelsen), the pastor at their church, and he confronts her both privately and publicly about the morality of her new love. To Verdener (aka Worlds Apart) was screened in competition at the 2008 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Nightwatch director Ole Bornedal returns to quicken the pulse of thriller fans with this genre-bending tale of a crime scene photographer and family man who is violently shaken out of his suburban malaise following a fateful car accident. Jonas makes his living by capturing gruesome crime scenes in all of their lurid detail, yet lately the beleaguered shutterbug has grown increasingly despondent in both his career and his personal life. One day, while driving through the city, Jonas is involved in a car accident with a young woman named Julia. Unconscious due to the impact of the crash, Julia is rushed to the hospital. Later, a concerned Jonas makes a special trip to check in on Julia, and finds her comatose in her hospital bed and surrounded by loved ones. Having never actually met her boyfriend Sebastian, Julia's family immediately assumes that Jonas is the man they've all heard so much about as of late. While Jonas is all too willing to step into the role for the time being, his ruse grows complicated when Julia awakens with amnesia, and the real Sebastian begins to grow curious about the intruder that has stolen his identity. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Her little brother possessed by 19th Century wizard following a seance gone awry, 14-year-old occult enthusiast Lulu (Sarah L. Gaarmann) teams with her bewitched sibling to defeat an evil spirit that is plotting to take over the world in director Nicolai Arcel's frightful action adventure film. The time was the 19th Century. A powerful necromancer has been expelled from a secret lodge that was constructed to combat the forces of evil. Flash forward to the present day, where young Lulu and her family are moving into their new country home. Hopelessly bored with her new rural surroundings, Lulu becomes immersed in the mysterious world of the occult. But now Lulu has opened doors that are best left closed, and her brother has become possessed by the spirit of an noble warrior. Should Lulu fail in confronting the dark forces that surround her family, a series of tragic events will soon begin to unfold. But defeating the forces of evil won't be the only challenge faced by this brave young girl, because along the way Lulu will search for a buried treasure and wage a valiant fight to save the souls of the ones she loves most. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

The Dogma 95 movement has seen some searing looks into the human condition but rarely a romantic comedy -- until now. Veteran Danish filmmaker Lone Scherfig spins this deadpan look at a group of lovelorn outsiders living in a grey corner of Copenhagen. After the perennially foul-tempered minister of a local church is fired after doing great injury to the organist, Andreas moves to the area to take over the parish. Staying in a hotel until his predecessor can be wrested from the rectory, Andreas befriends the establishment's scatter-brained manager, Jørgen, who is utterly in love with a beautiful Italian barmaid working at a nearby pub run by Hal-Finn. When the irascible Hal-Finn is chastised by the bar's owner for his unkempt appearance, he goes to a local salon where he meets Karen, a comely hairdresser harried by her grasping mom. Meanwhile, Andreas falls for a lethally klutzy pastry shop assistant named Olympia. This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

Mifunes Sidste Sang is the third feature produced according to the Dogma 95 manifesto, ten strict rules drawn up by the Danish directors Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg. The title of the film refers to the late Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune, who played a bogus samurai of peasant origins in Akira Kurosawa's Shichinin no Samurai/ Seven Samurai. The protagonist, Kresten, comes from humble country origins but now lives in the yuppie circles of Copenhagen and has the prospects of a glittering career until a telephone call on his wedding night shatters his hopes of a better life. Kresten's father has just died; he has always told everyone he knows, including his wife Claire, that he has no living family, but now he has to explain he does have one after all. When he returns to his father's dilapidated farmhouse, he meets his elder brother Rud, who is mentally retarded. Kresten is embarrassed by the prospect of having his poverty-stricken past unveiled and keeps his wife away, telling one lie after another. While trying to settle things on the farm, he becomes attached to his brother and tries to find a housekeeper to help alleviate the horrible conditions he is living in, so Kresten can go back to his comfortable life without feelings of guilt. However, the housekeeper turns out to be a high-class hooker on the run, and Kresten is extremely attracted to her. Meanwhile his wife, who is beginning to get suspicious, is threatening to join him. The basic philosophy behind the film is you can't lie your way out of the past on the farm. Director Soren Kragh-Jacobsen followed the Dogma 95 rules closely in this film -- the music is recorded along with the images, the camera is hand-held, there is no artificial lighting, no props, the plot takes place here and now without superficial action, no guns or murders. But unlike Lars von Trier's Dogma film, The Idiots, it was not shot on video and the director admits to adding a shrub or two to the farm scenes. Mifunes Sidste Sang-Dogme 3 received the Jury Grand Prix Silver Bear at the 49th Berlin International Film Festival in 1999, while actress Iben Hjejle got a Special Mention for her role as Liva, the prostitute. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, Rovi