The seasoned Danish producer has left Apple Tree Productions for Zentropa to boost the company’s TV drama ambitions. 

Karoline Leth moved to her new position as producer of film & TV series at Nordisk Film’s co-owned production house on May 1st.  Leth returns to Zentropa where she headed the documentary division Zentropa Real from 2004-2006. She then worked at SF Studios has Head of Production (2006-2013) supervising landmark TV2 hits such as Badehotellet and Rita. In 2013 she joined DR Drama’s in-house production team under Piv Bernth aegis, working on high-end series including The Legacy 2& 3 and Liberty. Early 2018 she was part of Bernth team who left DR Drama to create ITV Studios’ backed Apple Tree Productions.  Now back at Zentropa, Leth will work closely with the company’s long-time producers Louise Vesth and Sisse Graum Jørgensen to strengthen their fiction output in particular in TV drama.

In its official statement, Zentropa says the company has produced several TV dramas such as Lars von Trier’s The Kingdom, Mikkel Nørgaard’s Klown, Jesper W. Nielsen’s The Day Will Come, and most recently Christian E. Chritiansen’s Finding Home, but “the primary focus was on feature film for the Danish and international market”.  “With the huge demand for series from both Danish and foreign TV stations and streaming services, it has now become time to transfer the strong Zentropa brand to serial drama for the benefit of the numerous fans of Zentropa content,” says the press statement.

Commenting on Leth’s new position, Louise Vesth said: “Karoline is one of the most experienced and acclaimed producers of TV dramas we have in Denmark, and it is natural for Zentropa to strengthen our knowledge and imprint in this field. Karoline has been at Zentropa earlier and knows our mindset; it is also a great advantage for us that Karoline can handle large feature film productions that we will continue to make.”

Leth said she is happy to be back at Zentropa whose ‘courage, anarchism and high artistic ambitions’ she has always admired. Lars von Trier’s latest feature film The House that Jack Built which screened out of competition at last year’s Cannes Film Festival was originally conceived as a TV series. The director’s hospital series The Kingdom (Riget) made as two seasons of four episodes reached cult status when programmed on DR in 1994 and 1997. According to the Danish publication Euroman, the director is considering creating the third season that he had written but was never shot.