Variety Critics’ Choice: Europe Now! 2005 / Nede På Jorden / Denmark 2004
Extraordinary documentary, shot like a Ken Loach feature film, set in a lifeboat factory threatened with redundancies.
An extraordinary documentary, shot and edited like a Scandi realist drama, Blue Collar White Christmas blurs the genre’s margins in striking ways. Centered on a small group of employees at a lifeboat factory who are threatened with pre-Yule pink-slipping, pic is neither traditional docudrama nor straight reportage, more a decanting of true events into a smarter-looking bottle. The Viking lifeboat factory is a key employer in the small town. So when the management announces in the lead-up to Christmas 2001 that it will be “operating at a lower level,” the employees’ settled lives start to look less settled. Director Max Kestner and d.p. Henrik Ipsen present everything in a managed, visually planned way. Audience has to continually remind itself that this is not a scripted feature film a la Ken Loach — and in the very last scene the filmmakers have one delightful, Hans Christian Andersen-like trick up their sleeves.
Derek Elley
82 min / Color, 35 mm
Director Max Kestner
/ Screenplay Dunja Gry Jensen
/ Dir. of Photography Henrik Bohn Ipsen
/ Music Povl Kristian
/ Editor Nanna Frank Møller
/ Producer Jens Pedersen, Thomas Heurlin
/ Production Lynx Media a/s
/ Contact Danish Film Institute, TV 2/Denmark Programme Sales
Danish Film Institute
Gothersgade 55, 1123, Copenhagen
Denmark
Phone: +45 337 434 00
Fax: +45 337 434 01
E-mail: [email protected]
TV 2/Denmark Programme Sales
Sortedam Dossering 55 A, 2100, Copenhagen
Denmark
E-mail: [email protected]
Max Kestner
Film Director
Hanne Skjodt
Film Institution Rep.
Christian Juhl Lemche
Film Institution Rep.
Dunja Gry Jensen
Screenwriter
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