Ole Christian Madsen is one of the key members of the new wave of Danish directors who came out of the Danish Film School in the early 1990s.

He spoke to Annika Pham from an editing room in Copenhagen where he is fine-tuning the making of Flame & Citron, the most expensive Danish film to date (€6.3m). the mega-project is produced by Nimbus Film in co-production with Germany (Wüste Film), with the support from over 20 financiers including Nordisk Film & TV Fond.

Next week (July 1-2, 2007), he will attend the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival to present his latest film Prague selected at the Variety Critics' Choice sidebar.

How would you describe Flame & Citron and how did you get involved in the project?
Ole Christian Madsen: It's a very big film, the biggest budget Danish film ever. It's set during Danish occupation under WWII. It's about an inner-circle of activists that were killing Germans and Danish informers. Their fight became more and more radical, almost like terrorism. So it's quite a controversial subject matter.

The project is actually quite old. I stumbled on it almost seven years ago while I was working on DR's TV series, The Spider. After that, with scriptwriter Lars K. Andersen, we did a big research on it all over Europe, trying to find new information. But no financiers were interested in the story at that time. So I did other films in between, and so did the scriptwriter. Then a couple of years ago, I started working on the script again, digging into the research material and going directly to the essence of the story, building a strong structure, something people could not say ‘no' to... I went back to the scriptwriter and said let's do it! 

You're saying the film is about radicalism and you mention the word ‘terrorism', a very delicate but highly topical subject matter...
It's a very different subject matter connected to radical Islamism, to religious fights. I'm not saying that what they (the real protagonists Flame and Citron on which the story is based) were doing was terrorism, but that the mechanism they were using in their war were the same as the mechanism we now have in Iraq or Afghanistan. What makes people go further and further into a fight, become crueller? It's a very controversial subject matter and for Danish people, it will probably be difficult to deal with. But it's good for a nation to face the darker sides of its history.

Was it important for you to have two big stars (Mads Mikkelsen and Thure Lindhardt) carrying the story?
The project is actually quite old, so when I asked them if they wanted to play in it five years ago, they were not big stars yet. Thure became a well-known actor in Denmark with my previous film Angels in Fast Motion made in 2005.

Did you feel pressured about the fact that Flame & Citron is such a big budget movie?
Even if it's a big budget in Denmark, it is not a big budget for other countries. We had the same problems as on smaller budgeted films. We had to cut down all the way through the production. The pressure came from the fact that we had a lot of press and representation during the shooting as so many different partners from various countries are involved in the project. I had to make speeches all the time!

I'm now trying to prepare another film set during the occupation that hasn't been told, something very controversial again. It will be about the liberation of Denmark.

You're going to Karlovy Vary next week to present Prague at the Variety Critics' Choice section. The film which was a big success in Denmark last year (over 206,000 admissions) is based on a story - marital break up - that you had already explored in the 2001 Dogma film Kira's Reason-A Love Story. What made you go back to that theme six years and two films later, with the same lead actress?
I've always wanted to make films about relationships that are close to my own life. Both films are based on a personal experience with marital and love life. They are much related, and at the same time very different. I used the actress Stine Stengade again in Prague because she can show all the sides of a woman: dark, bright, or wild.

As a general rule, I try to make a bigger movie, then a smaller one. That rhythm gives me a feeling of freedom. With bigger budget films, it's very tough, very heavy to do the production, the editing, plus it costs a lot of money. Whereas with a smaller movie, you have perhaps only ten meetings and you can go on shooting.

The second reason why I directed Prague, is that I think you should make films from where you are in your life. When I do a drama, I want the characters to be exactly my age...When I'll turn 80, the characters will be 80!!!

Both Kira's Reason and Prague were co-written respectively with Morgens Rukov and Kim Fupz Aakeson, Is that something you enjoy doing, sharing the writing with an established scriptwriter?
In the beginning of the writing process, I like to discuss the characters with someone, the various angles of the film, and the structure of the drama. After a certain time, I like to continue the writing on my own. But Morgens Rukov was never really writing with me and was credited as development coordinator. With Kim Fupz Aakeson, it was different. We started out writing in Prague. We stayed 10 days in a hotel, writing the basis for the script. The imaginary power of one person is too small. You need the imaginary power from others as well to get the best out of an idea.

This notion of sharing ideas is something you learnt at the Danish Film School...
Yes indeed, and this notion is something that was instilled by Morgens Rukov and the Danish Film School.

This is something that is not very common for instance in France...
The way of dealing with art house films is very different in France. When I speak to French directors, I can see that they are sometimes stuck by their own pretensions. They don't get a high rhythm of production in their life because they spend a lot of time closed in one project. But then, the level of production there is very high anyway.

Do you also share ideas with producers?
Not so much. I think the role of the producer is over-rated. The producer's role is to get the money for the project. But dealing with the drama, the structure of the film is not the producer's task. For some it is important, for me not so much. I think if you work alone, then the producer is important. Not so much if you know what you want to do. However I bounce ideas with my editor, and with the actors. We improvise a lot, discuss if a scene is about this, or that, what is the true expression of it?

You've shot two movies back to back in Prague. How was your experience on a cultural and artistic standpoint?
Czech crews are perhaps among the best in the world. Their craftsmanship - set building for instance - is at a very high level and they really respect the project they work on. They are concentrated and do their best to accomplish a specific mission or make an idea come true.

My experience on Prague made me do parts of Flame & Citron there as well. Because of the financing, we had to shoot some of the scenes of Flame & Citron in Germany and in Denmark, but if I had had the choice, I would probably have done most of the filming in Prague.

Unfortunately the film might not be released in the Czech Republic because distributors are afraid Czech people might be offended by the film. It is a bit like Lost in Translation that was never released in Japan...

I could have predicted it, although the film is not at all about the Czech Republic or Czech people. It is about marital problems, and everything that is happening around the couple is a reflection of their inner life. I could perfectly have shot the film anywhere else in the world.

After Flame & Citron, will you do another smaller movie?
Yes, I will do a third relationship movie with Stine Stengade. So it will be a bit of a ‘relationship trilogy'. It will be about a couple, two individuals who have nothing in common at all, and the only thing that connects them is love.

Will it be another Nimbus Production?
Probably, yes.

Who are the filmmakers that you feel close to and that you admire?
I feel close to the American new wave, John Cassavetes, the French New Wave. I spend a lot of time watching the Godard and Truffaut films; I like Buñuel as well, naturalism, realism in cinema.

Any interest in shooting in the US?
Yes, I'd like that sometime. These days I'm more into smaller films, but I am in contact with an agent and I am quite curious to see how it would be to work over there.

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