Duo readies new arm

Zentropa, Nimbus to launch distrib'n operations

By JORN ROSSING JENSEN

COPENHAGEN -- In a joint venture with Nimbus Film, Denmark’s Zentropa Entertainments will launch its own distribution company, to handle domestic release of all in-house productions, when the current output deal with Nordisk Film expires in two years.

But already now publicity and marketing of new films from the two production houses have moved to Copenhagen’s Film City, where the distribbery’s first two staffers, Katrina Elisabeth Schelin, previously with pubcaster DR-TV, and Line Greisen, formerly at Nimbus Film, will start their first assignment: Susanne Bier’s "Two Brothers," due before the cameras in November.

"We have an excellent collaboration with Nordisk, but would like to put more promotional efforts into our films, and obviously keep some of the distribution fees within our companies," Zentropa Entertainments CEO, Peter Aalbek Jensen, told Variety.

During the last three years, Jensen and Lars von Trier’s production shingle has made some of the best-performing Danish films at the local box office, including Per Fly’s "Inheritance" (380,000 admissions this year), Bier’s "Open Hearts" (503,000 in 2001), and Lone Scherfig’s "Italian for Beginners" (818,000 in 2000).