Danish films about childhood friends

In the days following the surrender of Germany in May 1945, a group of young German prisoners of war were handed over to the Danish authorities and subsequently sent out to the West Coast, where they were ordered to remove the more than two million mines that the Germans had placed in the sand along the coast. With their bare hands, crawling around in the sand, the boys were forced to perform the dangerous work under the leadership of the Danish sergeant, Carl Leopold Rasmussen.

The lives of two Danish families cross each other, and an extraordinary but risky friendship comes into bud. But loneliness, frailty and sorrow lie in wait.

12-year-old Pelle accidentally gets bitten by an ant and develops unimaginable superpowers. With help from his friend, comic book nerd Wilhelm, Pelle creates a secret identity as the superhero Antboy. Slowly things start to happen in the surburban community, and when a scary and crazy supervillain, Flea, enters the scene, Antboy must step up to the challenge. The first Danish superhero-movie. Based on the books by Kenneth Bøgh Andersen.

A custodian in a housing project discovers that a naked, mute woman he found in one of his apartments has miraculous healing powers.

Opening in the seductive style of the sixties, »A Funny Man« uncovers the perennial loneliness that comedian Dirch Passer (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) has found himself in after a fast-tracked rise to fame. He struggles between his own desire to gain critical respect and servicing the audience¿s needs. Costing his kindred friendship to on-stage partner Kjeld Petersen (Lars Ranthe) Dirch takes on Steinbeck's classic »Of Mice and Men«, only for the audience to break out in laughter at his first line. Dirch's Lennie becomes a running joke, and so has, Dirch believes, his own life.

The story follows a 16-year-old Icelandic boy, Ari, who lives with his mother in Reykjavík, She has to leave the country for a new job, sending him back to the small town of his youth. There he finds his old friend, suddenly a young woman with a tricky romantic relationship; and his father has become a victim of the financial crisis.

After weeks of traveling through Europe, the immature William finds himself in Copenhagen, the place of his father’s birth. He befriends the youthful Effy, who works in William’s hotel as part of an internship program, and they set off to find William’s last living relative. Effy’s mix of youthful exuberance and wisdom challenges William unlike any woman ever has. As the attraction builds, he must come to grips with destabilizing elements of his family’s sordid past.

It Takes A Family is a complex, personal story about the director’s family, its secrets and repressed memories. Susanne Kovács knows that her paternal grandparents survived the Holocaust and fled to Denmark to begin a new life. The Hungarian couple kept their own story under lock and key throughout their lives and focused on immersing themselves into Danish everyday life as quickly as possible. A picture book life, seen from the outside. To escape the memory of death, they smiled and remained silent. If no one sees the darkness, they hoped, normality becomes possible. However the unsaid did not fade but grew and finally began to darken the present. Now, Susanne wants to break the silence. But her probing questions bring back painful memories. Is she at all allowed to dig into a family history that holds so many ghosts from the past? And maybe there is more than one truth?

In a quirky, small town, situated in the outskirts of everything, 14-year-old Martin is getting ready for one of the most formal transitions from boy to man; the communion. It's 1976, music's in the air and hormones are blossoming. But in the midst of it all Martin's mother suddenly passes away and her tragic death trickers a series of events that not only changes Martin's life forever, but also affects everyone else in the local community. Overwhelmed with grief neither Martin's dad, nor his older brother, is capable to comfort Martin. He enters adulthood in a mixture of drunken happiness and immense sadness over the loss of his mother, and his relationship to both his friend Kim and girlfriend Kristine comes to its natural conclusion.

When Gerda Wegener asks her husband Einar to fill in as a portrait model, Einar discovers the person she's meant to be and begins living her life as Lili Elbe. Having realized her true self and with Gerda's love and support, Lili embarks on a groundbreaking journey as a transgender pioneer.

Touko Laaksonen, a decorated officer, returns home after a harrowing and heroic experience serving his country in World War II, but life in Finland during peacetime proves equally distressing. He finds peace-time Helsinki rampant with persecution of the homosexual and men around him even being pressured to marry women and have children. Touko finds refuge in his liberating art, specialising in homoerotic drawings of muscular men, free of inhibitions. His work – made famous by his signature ‘Tom of Finland’ – became the emblem of a generation of men and fanned the flames of a gay revolution.

An old note is found in a bottle in Jutland which has travelled across the ocean for a long time. The note is hard to decipher, but when the Danish investigators from Section Q receive it, the odd personalities within the section find a new angle on it and try to unveil yet another old and diabolic case even though the lead is cold.

As children, Nick and his little brother take care of their baby brother while their mother drinks herself senseless. But the baby dies, and both brothers blame themselves. Many years later, Nick is out of prison after serving time for an assault. He drinks, lives in a shelter and tries to help an old friend. When their mother dies, Nick meets his brother at the funeral. The brother, who remains nameless, is a single father to a young boy, but also supports a drug habit that is spiraling out of control. When an opportunity presents itself, he becomes a drug dealer to secure his son's future. Eventually, the two brothers meet again.

Marie Krøyer is hailed as “the most beautiful woman in Europe” and leads a happy marriage life with her husband the great Danish painter P.S. Krøyer and an adorable daughter. However, not everything in her world is as perfect as it seems, and Marie’s life is crumbling as her dreams of a beloved wife, good mother and successful artist are unfulfilled. After hospitalizing her mentally ill husband Marie leaves for vacation, and in search for peace and comfort she finds herself falling in love with the young composer Hugo Alfven. Once again, internationally acclaimed Bille August exhibits the weaknesses of human beings in comparison to the ruthless nature. The grandeur scenery of deserted Scandinavian oceans speaks in volumes for the protagonists living in silence despite their lives being full of pains.

'The Renion' is a new Danish comedy starring Troels Lyby, Nicolaj Copernicus and Anders W. Berthelsen. The three highschool friends Niels (Nicolaj Copernicus), Andreas (Anders W. Berthelsen) and Thomas (Troels Lyby) are invited to their 25 years anniversary. While Niels and Andrew struggles with not feeling like participating, Thomas is of a different opinion. Having arranged an all-time weekend of drinks, ladies and blowing off steam! The big question is: Will they actually survive the Copenhagen nightlife ... and will they even get to the reunion?. 'The Reunion' is a Danish comedy about old friends, that realises, at some point they are going to grow up and have to behave as adults... AS IF!

When Laura and Christine meet Maria, their friendship takes an intense turn to vulnerability, love and sex.

Erik, a lecturer in architecture, inherits his father’s large old house in Hellerup, north of Copenhagen. His wife Anna, a well-known television newscaster, suggests that they invite their friends to come and live with them. In this way she hopes to evade the boredom that has begun to seep into their marriage. Before long, a dozen women, men and children move into the country house, make collective decisions, engage in discussions and go swimming together in the nearby Øresund strait. They also rub each other up the wrong way on account of their smaller and larger idiosyncrasies. Their fragile equilibrium threatens to come undone when Erik falls in love with his student Emma and the young woman moves into the house. Fourteen-year-old Freja, daughter of Erik and Anna, aloofly observes these goings-on and seeks her own way.

Maybe the best thing to come out of Scandinavia during the hippie years was, in fact, the story of a radical libertarian and a hedonist capitalist. Their friendship, forged by being outsiders in a conformist country, took them through years of adulation and success, with slight detours into the welcoming arms of vilification and imprisonment. A joyride through taxation, mass travel, hookers and politics. Not feeling too constrained by historical facts, director Christoffer Boe's story of Simon Spies and Mogens Glistrup covers just a few of their decades in a tale of warmth and humour, defiance and eccentricity.

The moving love story of a dancer on the rollercoaster ride of her life, a drama about the rise and fall of a modern woman as she summons the courage to face her greatest trial.

The prestigious Danish filmmaker Bille August, winner of an Academy Award and two Palme d'Or in Cannes, returns with a highly personal drama. Three generations of a family gather over a weekend. The sisters Sanne and Heidi have accepted their terminally-ill mother’s desire to die before her disease worsens; but, as the weekend progresses, their mother's decision becomes harder and harder to deal with, and old conflicts come to the surface.

A family of four is quarantined in their home as a virulent strand of the flu spreads into town and they are forced to the extreme to escape alive.

Someone You Love is a story about world famous singer-songwriter Thomas Jacob who lives in Los Angeles. He is a successful man with a lot of burned bridges. After years abroad Thomas travels back to Denmark to record a new album. There his estranged daughter Julie suddenly turns up with his 11-year-old grandson, Noa. Soon, Thomas is forced to take care of the boy. Against all odds the two of them slowly begin to connect through music. But disaster strikes, forcing Thomas to realize he has to make a choice that will change his life forever.

Poor Ivan Olsen is plagued by problems bullied at school and constantly pursued by a gang whose greatest pleasure is filling his pants with water. And when Ivan gets home, his dad doesn't have much sympathy for him either because he is crazy about Tarzan and fails to appreciate Ivan's finer qualities. But one day Ivan gets the chance to live up all of his dad's expectations and give the bullies at school a lesson they will never forget. The big question is whether having superpowers makes life any easier?

The true story of the Fiil's a family of innkeepers who during Nazi-Germany's occupation of Denmark took up arms against the German occupiers. But in the fight for freedom, some must die so that others may live.

A film about Rikard, age 30. He is autistic and severely disfigured. He lives in a home for disabled people. He was separated from his mother as a three-year-old, and this continues to torment him today. To deal with life's trials, Rikard escapes into a fantasy world in which he's a 50-meter-tall giant.

Company commander Claus Michael Pedersen and his men are stationed in Helmand, Afghanistan. Meanwhile back in Denmark, with a husband at war and three children missing their father, everyday life is a struggle for Claus' wife Maria. During a routine mission, the soldiers are caught in heavy Taliban crossfire. In order to save his men, Claus makes a decision that ultimately sees him return to Denmark accused of a war crime.

Chronicles four years in the life of Julie, a young woman who navigates the troubled waters of her love life and struggles to find her career path, leading her to take a realistic look at who she really is.

A group of strangers find friendship, family and love within an Italian beginners’ course.

Recounted mostly through animation to protect his identity, Amin looks back over his past as a child refugee from Afghanistan as he grapples with a secret he’s kept hidden for 20 years. A thrilling documentary made with a blend of animation and archive footage tells an immensely powerful tale of a gay Afghan survivor and his need to confront his past in order to truly have a future. Amin arrived as an unaccompanied minor in Denmark from Afghanistan. Today, at 36, he is a successful academic and is getting married to his long-time boyfriend. A secret he has been hiding for over 20 years threatens to ruin the life he has built for himself. For the first time he is sharing his story with his close friend. FLEE weaves together a stunning tapestry of images and memories to tell the deeply affecting and original story of a young man grappling with his traumatic past in order to find his true self and the meaning of home.

Little Wing tells the story of 12-year-old Varpu, who's quickly growing to adulthood, and about her mother, who doesn't want to grow up. Varpu lives with her mother and has never met her father. One night Varpu has enough of her riding buddies and her mother. She steals a car and drives up north in search of her father, of whom she only knows the name. But her father is not exactly what she had expected. Meeting him trigger something in Varpu and Siru's life, making them realize their role in each other's lives, and in the world.

The last summer the five boys are together in Falkenberg. They are now grown up to be young men, on their way out into the world. At least most of them.

Ndola, Northern Rhodesia (currently Zambia), September 18th, 1961. Swedish Dag Hammarskjöld, UN Secretary-General, mysteriously dies in a plane crash. Decades later, Danish journalist and filmmaker Mads Brügger and Swedish researcher Göran Björkdahl investigate the case looking for a definitive closure.

When Claus, a car salesman and a passionate gambler, gets his 19-year-old son Silas mixed up in considerable gambling debts owed to criminals, he is forced to put his own life at risk to save his son.

In a remote Icelandic town, an off duty police chief begins to suspect a local man to have had an affair with his wife, who has recently died in a car accident. Gradually his obsession for finding out the truth accumulates and inevitably begins to endanger himself and his loved ones. A story of grief, revenge and unconditional love.

Marijana's life revolves around her family, whether she likes it or not. They live on top of one another in a tiny apartment, driving one another crazy. Then her controlling father has a stroke and is left completely bedridden, and Marijana takes his place as head of the clan. Soon, she is working two jobs to keep everything afloat, while her mother and disabled brother do their best to scupper the ship. Driven to the edge, Marijana finds comfort in seedy sex with random strangers; and this taste of freedom leaves her wanting more. But now that she has finally found freedom, what's she meant to do with it?

Olsen-Banden skal udføre en betroet opgave for selveste Statsministeriet: H.C. Andersens originale fjerpen skal stjæles fra det Danske Export Museum, det gælder angiveligt Rigets sikkerhed og gode omdømme. Men Hallandsen har igen taget røven på Egon.Der er intet mindre end den danske nationalfølelse, Egons ære og 30 millioner på spil. Men Egon har en plan - han skal bruge en boremaskine, et glas honning, en flaske økologisk sveskejuice og en god bunke døde rotter.Christiansborg sættes på den anden ende, metroen forsinkes mere end sædvanligt og Dronningens gardere danser pludselig cancan.

The city needs heroes. Darkness has settled over New York City as Shredder and his evil Foot Clan have an iron grip on everything from the police to the politicians. The future is grim until four unlikely outcast brothers rise from the sewers and discover their destiny as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The Turtles must work with fearless reporter April and her wise-cracking cameraman Vern Fenwick to save the city and unravel Shredder's diabolical plan.

A famous Danish artist and fashion photographer who leads an eventful life and is always travelling, meets a man who immediately awakens strong feelings in her. This unexpected encounter sparks a decisive turning point in her life and they begin a passionate relationship.

In 1909, two explorers fight to survive after they're left behind while on a Denmark expedition in ice-covered Greenland.

Topper thinks summer vacation is boring. He misses his father who is sailing the seven seas. He can't figure out Sille who's cute. And his best friend, Viggo, always has to help out his punctilious dad, Mr Lion, in the café on the first floor of the red house where Topper lives on the top floor with his mother. One day, Topper finds a magic pencil and when he draws a rhino on the wall, the drawing comes to life! While Topper and Viggo try to keep the rhino, which they name Otto, well fed with black bread and raspberry soda before it devours all the furniture, Mr Lion pleads with the local authorities to come and remove the stomping pachyderm.

A story about the beautiful but confused young woman Helene, who, according to her mother, was born as a 'technical error'. Helene suspects that her father, who left his family before Helene was born, might be the once celebrated director of a dilapidated theater in Copenhagen. Assisted by a series of bizarre coincidences and by her mother's dog (a creature in whose shadow Helene has always lived), Helene manages to get closer to her father.

To celebrate his 90th birthday, an old single journalist, Sabio, who accustomed to intimacy with whores since childhood, decides to gift himself with an intense night of love with a virgin teenager. Rosa Cabarcas, his old friend as a brothel madam arranges him the ideal young woman, Delgadina, a factory worker, who sells her virginity to support her family, but when he sees her sleeping angelically, he loses interest in pure pleasure and falls in love with her. That love was not meant to be true, but fate changes, and that hope is born of an opportunity for unbridled love.

It is Midsummer's Eve and ten people are on a deserted castle for a TV recording. The next morning the program leader is shot dead. Kvällspressens Annika Bengtzon a mandate to monitor the murder, but she soon learns that her best friend Anne Snapphanevägen is one of the ten suspects. When the police released all one after another - all except Anne - it becomes personal for Bengtzon who will do anything to exonerate her friend.

Two hard-living best friends and aficionados of illegal racing contests find their bond tested when one of them goes to trial for vehicular homicide.

Sensitive 12-year-old Alf is the low man on his class' totem pole, and he's sick of it. Forming a secret, Machiavellian alliance with another student who also has grown weary of being bullied, he hatches a plan to throw a wrench into the well-oiled gears of the school social order. Everything seems to go according to plan, until Alf discovers that turning the tables on his tormentors has its own dire consequences.

The Punk Syndrome is a film about Finland’s most kick-ass punk rock band, Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät. The band members, Pertti, Kari, Toni and Sami, are mentally handicapped and they play their music with a lot of attitude and pride. We follow these professional musicians on their journey from obscurity to popularity. We watch them fight, fall in love and experience strong emotions. We witness long days in the recording studio and on tour. They laugh, cry, drink and fight over who gets to sit in the front on the tour bus. Then it’s time to make up and go talk to people in the audience and tell them how great their band is.

A teacher lives a lonely life, all the while struggling over his son’s custody. His life slowly gets better as he finds love and receives good news from his son, but his new luck is about to be brutally shattered by an innocent little lie.

Vader hires Boba Fett to track down the gungan Jar Jar Binks for an accident he caused to Vader. The film also takes place at the same time as the original movies showing Jar Jar responsible for the destruction of the first Death Star and was with Boba at the Jabba's Barge event from Return of the Jedi.

Danish soldiers are sent to Afghanistan in 2009 for 6 months, to help stabilize the country against the Taliban. They're stationed on Armadillo military base in Helman province. Unlike other war movies, this is the real deal - no actors.

The successful entrepreneur Lars Halbo returns to Denmark when he inherits the family firm, but when he refuses to cooperate in illegal cartel pricing, his little company comes under heavy pressure.