Two of Europe’s top cutting-edge production houses - Glasgow-based Hopscotsh Films, behind Mark Cousin’s The Story of Film: A New Generation, and Ruben Östlund’s Plattform Produktion, have signed up for Kestner’s playful journey of self-discovery and life questioning, featuring among other things…a dead giraffe.

The blatant killing of Marius the giraffe in Copenhagen Zoo in 2014 which caused outrage around the world, is indeed the starting point for the feature which explores our relationships with animals and humans’ place in the ecosystem, combining a scientific vantage point with existential thoughts.

Explaining the genesis of Beast, Bullitt Film’s managing director and producer Vibeke Vogel says it all started in 2004, with Kestner’s film Max by Chance, which toured international festivals including IDFA. “Max by Chance was a 30-minute tour-de-force from Max’s personal life, expanding into associations but concluding it's all coincidence. Now [in Beast] the director is not so sure. He wants to talk about the big stuff: what is life. What is conscience? Is there something more, but not in a religious sense?"

For Kestner, his questioning is by no means, something new, but rather “the kind of thing that children ask without getting very many answers”.

“Religions once answered those questions, but today we are still waiting for science to come up with answers,” says the director, who therefore approached prominent researchers for his film, including US marine microbiologist Karen Lloyd and UK writer, barrister, traveller Charles Foster, author of the New York Times best-seller ‘Being a Beast’.

Other interviewees providing colourful testimonies, linked to Marius the giraffe case, include celebrity broker Claus Hjelmbak who offered one million US dollars for the giraffe on behalf of a rich US family dynasty, and Bengt Holst who was the scientific director of the Copenhagen Zoo at the time.

Vogel says the film’s visual style will be “wild and full of humour and beauty.”

The director adds: “The film will look like a teenager's floor when she just emptied her bag after a weekend with friends. You will think ‘what the fuck is this and where did it come from’. It's not perfect; it's unpredictable and wild, it will take your hand and lead you to places you have never been”, Kestner pledges.

The film co-financed by TV2 Denmark, with support from Nordisk Film & TV Fond, has just started production. The preliminary release date is set for the spring 2024.