Old, New, Borrowed and Blue

Colour, 35 mm
Denmark, 2002, 90 min
Section: Official selection

Synopsis

Katrine and Jonas are about to be married. Katrine goes to visit her sister Mette who has been committed to a psychiatric hospital but tells her nothing about the wedding preparations. Thomsen, her sister’s ex-boyfriend, who spent two years in Kenya and who is the source of Mette´s unhappines, suddenly appears in the house of the future married couple. The visit ends up as a wild bash. The next day Katrine chances to discover a fact that affects Thomsen´s future, but she decides to keep it to herself. Nonetheless, Thomsen attracts her just as much as he did before. They go through a series of crazy episodes including taking drugs and visiting an exotic hairdresser. After causing a disturbance at the hospital they end up at the police station and Katrine almost misses her wedding. Then during the ceremony she makes a surprising decision…. This mosaic, set in Copenhagen and shot according to the Dogma 95 manifesto, confronts various attitudes towards life. The narration – restricted to a few days – is framed by vistas of the everyday life of the metropolis. A post-modern twist on love stories, involving a love which cannot be controlled.

About the director

Natasha Arthy (b. 1969, Gentofle, Germany), director, screenwriter and producer, realized several family mini-series for Danish television in the nineties. Her best-known writer-director movie is Mirakel (2000), in which she combined elements of comedy and musical. The main character of this humorous tale is a 12-year-old boy who has problems with his mother and schoolmates and into whose life a bizarre guardian angel enters. The title of her latest film – the romantic comedy Old, New, Borrowed and Blue (2003) – is based on a traditional saying concerning a bride´s wardrobe.