Filming has started on the Danish feature drama, based on acclaimed Norwegian/Danish writer Kim Leine’s autobiographical novel.

Hot Swedish writer/director Eklöf, has made her mark on the festival circuit both with her debut film Holiday (best film-best director at Austin Fantastic Fest Next Wave) and as co-writer of Ali Abbasi’s Border.

Her sophomore feature Kalak co-written by Leine and Sissel Dalsgaard Thomsen is both a harrowing drama based on Leine’s own childhood trauma and experience of working as a nurse in Nuuk, and a take of the complex relations between Denmark and Greenland.

The film follows Jan, a family father, working as a nurse in Nuuk, Greenland. Jan is in a downward spiral, trying to escape the trauma of his childhood abuse from his father. Eager to be part of the open, collectivist culture, he basically tries to fuck his way inside, and being called a ‘Kalak’ (meaning both ‘true’ and ‘dirty’ Greenlander) doesn’t bother him. Ultimately, he is forced to face his father to find redemption and peace.

In the title roles are Emil Johnsen (All the Beauty, Guidance) as Jan, Asta Kamma August (Burn all My Letters, The Pact) as his wife, and Søren Hellerup as his father. The main Greenlandic roles are played by film director Berda Larsen, Connie Kristoffersen and Hans-Jukku Noahsen.

Eklöf says “at its core, the film is about fathers, and how trauma is brought down through generations. Jan has been raped by his father just as the Greenlandic culture has been raped by a foreign aggressor. I hope to land with a film that is dramatic and intense, dirty in a lyrical way, desperate and controlled. And I hope to display the complexity and mess that is post-colonialism in a truthful, hurtful, and thoughtful manner,” she said.

Leine for whom Kalak will be “an illustration of [his] novel in moving pictures”, is thrilled to be collaborating with Eklöf, a “hungry, ambitious, and fearless” new female voice, and “with lots of talents from Greenland” on both sides of the camera. “Greenland is full of brilliant creative people in all arts, something that tends to be underrated by Danes. Hopefully the film will help correct that perception,” said the Norwegian/Danish author, winner of the 2013 Nordic Council Literary Prize for “The Prophets of the Eternal Fjord”.

Filming has just started in Copenhagen and will then move to Nuuk and Kulusuk in Greenland.

Kalak is produced by Maria Møller Kjeldgaard for Manna Film, in co-production with Sweden’s Momento Film, Film i Väst, Norway’s Mer Film, Holland’s Lemming Film, Finland’s Made, Polarama Greenland and Denmark’s Beofilm.

The film was backed by the Danish Film Institute, Nordisk Film & TV Fond, DR, FilmFyn, Creative Europe, Government of Greenland, NAPA, Sermersooq Municipality Culture Fund, the Swedish Film Institute, SVT, The Norwegian Film Institute, Mediefondet Zefyr, NRK, the Netherlands Film Fund, Finnish Film Foundation and Yle.

The theatrical release via Scanbox is slated for 2023.