The Danish prodco is in post with Cutterhead and will bring Teenage Jesus to Cinéfondation’s L’Atelier in Cannes. 

Cutterhead [previously known as Earth Pressure Balance] by Super 16 graduate Rasmus Kloster Bro was pitched as a work in progress at Haugesund 2016. The survival drama is produced by Amalie Lyngbo Quist for Beo Starling –sister company to the production and post-production outfit Beofilm.  Three characters with different backgrounds - the middle-class Danish woman Rie, Portuguese miner Ivo and Bharan, a worker from Eritrea-are stuck 20 meters underground following an accident at Copenhagen Metro construction site. 

The film was made as part of the Danish Film Institute’s New Danish Screen low budget Sketch (‘Skitsen’) scheme. “Instead of just writing the script in the development stage, we went out and filmed teasers to give a taste of our vision,” said Lyngbo Quist. “We shot in a documentary style a mix of actors and real life workers on Copenhagen metro’s construction site and the entire story grew from reality.” The film will be delivered in the fall 2017. 

Beo Starling’s other film supported by New Danish Screen is Teenage Jesus by newcomer Maria Grahtø that has just been selected for Cinéfondation’s L’atelier in Cannes. The project received development support from Nordisk Film & TV Fond’s Nordic Genre Boost and won Best Pitch at Haugesund 2015. “We’ve received very positive response and hope to close with a co-production partner in Cannes, before going into production in the winter,” said Lyngbo Quist. 

The third feature project is the chiller Bad Desire, second feature directed by the experienced scriptwriter Jens Dahl (co-writer of Nicolas Winding Refn‘ s Pusher). Dahl’s directorial debut 3 Things starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Birgitte Hjort Sørensen comes out in Denmark on May 18.

Based on a script by Sissel Dalsgaard Thomsen, Bad Desire deals with stem cell research and search for eternal youth. It centres on Rose (30), an ambitious elite jumping rider engaged to the wealthy William (37). Suspecting him of infidelity, she follows him to the family-owned dairy. In the basement, she discovers a nightmarish complex of cells where young women are held and abused. “The film is pure horror, for diehard fans of the genre,” said the producer.

Bad Desire received support from the Danish Film Institute and will be co-produced by Norway’s Bendik Heggen Strønstad of Yesbox Productions that Lyngbo Quist met at Nordic Genre Boost.