Scherfig’s untitled New York project started filming on March 23 in Toronto .

The film will then move to Copenhagen and New York City.

Nighy starred in Scherfig’s previous film Their Finest, while Landry Jones appeared in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri and Jay Baruchel in Goon. They join previously announced cast members Andrea Riseborough (Death of Stalin), Tahar Rahim (A Prophet) and Zoe Kazan (The Big Sick).

Formerly known as Secrets from the Russian Tea Room, the untitled film is a modern fairy-tale, set in a Russian restaurant in New York. The main characters are Clara (Kazan), a mother looking to avoid her abusive cop husband; Alice (Riseborough), a shy ER Nurse who runs an eclectic therapy group "Forgiveness"; Mark (Rahim), an ex-con now turned manager of the restaurant; Jeff (Landry Jones), a young man in desperate need of a job; John Peter (Baruchel), a lawyer with high ethics but low self-esteem and Timofey (Nighy), owner of the restaurant and the grandson of Russian immigrants.
Key crew members comprise Sebastian Blenkov (Miss Sloane, Their Finest), production designer Carol Spier (Eastern Promises), costume designer Louize Nissen (A War, Kon-Tiki) and composer Mark Korvin (The Witch: A New-England Folktale).

The film is produced by Malene Blenkov (Bridgend, Backstabbing for Beginners) for Denmark’s Creative Alliance and Canada’s Strada Films, in co-production with France’s D’Artagnan, Germany’s Nadcon and Sweden’s Unlimited Stories, in association with ARTE Grand Accord/WDR, DR, Ingenious Senior Film Fund, Copenhagen Film Fund, Film i Väst, with support from the Danish Film Institute, The Swedish Film Institute, Telefilm Canada and Nordisk Film & TV Fond.

London-based Hanway Films handles world sales, Entertainment One will release the film in Canada and SF Studios across Scandinavia.