Ben Hamilton
April 25th, 2021

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Unlikely to win Best Director, certain to do his daughter proud (photo: DR)

Morten Olsen, Simon Kjær, Daniel Agger, Ebbe Sand … all distinguished captains of the national football team.

But one name rises above them in history: Lars Olsen, the Dane who famously lifted the Euro 1992 trophy.

Can Simon Kjær emulate him? Well, a brief look at the Euro 2020 game schedule looks encouraging.

Surely the greatest now?
Thomas Vinterberg knows a thing or two about being the leader of the pack

Carl Theodor Dreyer, Lars von Trier, Billie August, Gabriel Axel, Susanne Bier … Vinterberg has already surpassed them all!

Since announcing himself on the world stage with the unforgettable ‘Festen’ as one of the co-founders of the Dogme 95 movement, the Danish director has been a name to look out for.

His 2012 production ‘Jagten’ came close to landing the greatest prize available to Danish movies, the Oscar for ‘Best Foreign Language Film’, and now, almost a decade later, his latest creation, ‘Druk’ (‘Another Round’), is a raging hot favourite to take the award.

Not only that, but Vinterberg has grabbed a ‘Best Director’ nomination, becoming the first Dane in history to do so. Sweden has previously picked up six nods, and Norway one, but never before a Dane.

In dedication to
For Vinterberg, winning an Oscar with ‘Druk’ will not only prove to be his finest moment, but also his most poignant.

He chose to film many of its scenes at the school attended by his daughter Ida, but while many of her friends starred in it, she did not.

Ida, who played a large role in persuading her father to make ‘Druk’, had been tragically killed in a car accident in Belgium several months earlier. 

The film is accordingly dedicated to her memory.  

Gonner at the Globes
Should the 4/11 shot persevere, it will have the Academy’s rules to thank. 

Because while the Korean language film ‘Minari’ beat ‘Druk’ to win the Golden Globe for ‘Best Foreign Language Feature’, it is ineligible to compete in the Oscars’ ‘Best International Feature’ category (renamed in 2019) because it is US-produced.

Heading into the Globes, Vinterberg was hoping it would be third time lucky following ‘Festen’ and ‘Jagten’. 

But despite his homeland’s good record, it was not to be. Indeed, Danish films not made by Vinterberg have three wins from six nominations!

Korean ‘Field of Dreams’
Ahead of the Oscars ‘Druk’ will test the waters at the BAFTAs, where it has been shortlisted for four awards: best foreign language film, director, original screenplay (Vinterberg and Tobias Lindholm) and actor (Mads Mikkelsen). 

Again ‘Minari’, which has six nominations, will stand in its way. At the Globes, ‘Druk’ was 2/1 to upset the odds, so who knows: maybe it will bring home the bacon.

With promo shots resembling the classic 1980s film ‘Field of Dreams’, ‘Minari’ is being lauded as one of the films of the year.

It has an impressive Metacritic score of 88 from 33 reviews – seven points more than ‘Druk’. Although … look over your shoulder … as the Bosnian contender ‘Quo Vadis: Aida’ has a score of 96 and is 3/1 to win the Oscar. 

Four Danish noms
In other Oscar news, Mikkel EG Nielsen has been nominated for best film editing for ‘Sound of Metal’.

Nielsen, who has also been nominated for a BAFTA in the same category, is the third most likely to win the award, according to the Gold Derby tipping website.

While another Danish filmmaker, Elvira Lind, has been nominated in the category of Best Short Film for ‘The Letter Room’. 

Based in New York, her husband is the ‘Star Wars’ actor Oscar Isaac.