A movie that we hoped might hit the Cannes Film Festival, "A Hijacking" director Tobias Lindholm‘s "A War" didn’t end up landing on the Croisette. But the good news is that the film is still on the way. Reteaming with "Borgen" star Pilou Asbaek, the filmmaker’s new drama follows a Danish soldier in the midst of the Afghanistan war. Two years ago, Lindholm shared with us some of his inspirations for the picture.
"I believe that for me, [Kathryn] Bigelow has shown a way to tell this type of story. I’m very much inspired by both ‘The Hurt Locker‘ and ‘Zero Dark Thirty.’ But this is a Danish reality so it’s not even close to an American military action — we haven’t that story," he explained. "This is the first war that Denmark is actually in for years, we have Danish soldiers dying out there. I believe that Denmark as a nation is, just on a small scale, where the U.S. was post Vietnam. We kind of now have to accept that we ask these young guys to do this and now we have to find a way to get them back. And I think it’s time now to reveal some of the terrible, inhuman, violent dilemmas they are in out there and not expect them to be over-human."
"It’s a very humanistic movie," he added. "I believe it’s very political to go and judge the soldiers; I feel I need to describe them as human beings."
Magnolia Pictures has already snapped up the U.S. rights and this one looks very promising. Watch the first trailer below. [Indiewire]