Ben Hamilton
January 13th, 2019

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It’s Astralis I feel sorry for. I bet you bottom dollar they haven’t made it into the sports top five, even though they’re world leaders at what they do. But is it sport? Because it sure ain’t culture.

A lot of things are, though, which makes compiling a list of the top five movers and shakers hard. For example, does cinematographer Dan Lausten make the list for his Oscar nomination for ‘The Shape of Water’? And how about Kim Bodnia, brilliantly understated for once in ‘Killing Eve’?

In the end, I’ve taken the ‘cobble them together’ approach to include as many mentions as possible. After all, these top fives should, above everything, be informative, so if anything tweaks your interest, look it up at cphpost.dk.

 5 Resurrection: Yes, you read that right – it’s been a good year for the non-living. While the poetry of Tove Ditlevsen (died 1976) and music of John Mogensen (died 1977) have never been more popular, our super mummy of 2018 is none other than the daddy of Danish fiction: Hans Christian Andersen (died 1875). Plans are afoot to reinvent him as a Victorian era detective.

4 Recognition: Actors Johannes Lassen and Lars Mikkelsen notched up a Monte Carlo TV Festival award and an international Emmy respectively, but neither could compete with Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, even though this was the first year since 2010 not to feature a ‘Game of Thrones’ season. Not only did he get his first Emmy nom, but he was also featured on a British postage stamp.

3 Realm-serving: Finally, the world’s biggest television show came calling, and no, we’re not talking about ‘The Great British Bake Off’, which selected ‘Danish’ as one of its theme weeks (entirely thanks to an insider, the host Sandi Toksvig). Some 29 seasons and 20 episodes since its debut, ‘The Simpsons’ finally graced Denmark with a visit in ‘Throw Grampa from the Dane’.

2 Reward-reaping: Oscars are the ultimate leg-up. Just ask Susanne Bier, the Academy’s latest board member, two-time winner Kim Magnusson, who’s in charge of Netflix’s Scandinavian output, and Claes Bang, who’s capitalised on starring in ‘The Square’ to snag the part of Dracula in a big budget miniseries. ‘Den Skyldige’, down to a shortlist of nine, is waiting in the wings to capitalise.

1 Redemption: From fearless Nicolai Fuglsig choosing to make his directorial debut with a Hollywood action film (‘12 Strong’) to indomitable Celina Riel finishing fourth in Miss Danmark despite missing the upper part of her left arm, 2018 was the year of the underdog. Niels Jansen, the first transgender winner of Mr Gay Denmark, led the way and he did not mince his words in the build-up: “A gay man is desirable if he is young, muscular and cisgender, and I am none of these things.” Fortunately, the swimwear category was discontinued in 2017 and the prize was his.