Liberty

A massive undertaking that really required pushing it all to the limits. I love the original book by Ejersbo that this series was created on, and so it was quite daunting. My sister, Karoline, and I decided to cast caution to the wind and just go for it. Her as producer, me as writer/director. (at first). I created the series to direct it, but unfortunately it was not meant to be; time, pressure, time, pressure.

Thankfully just three weeks before shooting, the great Mikael Marcimain had the courage to jump on board, and drive the ship into harbour, while I finished polishing the last two episodes. He embraced the locations, the production design, the cast, the photographer - and the scripts 😘 and added a whole bunch of Marcimain spice delivering a series with a hysterical showrunner sending mad emails from start to finish.

The resulting series is beautiful and raw and thought provoking. I think. And so did the reviews and hopefully the audience.

I love the poster that my sister magically whisked up. (thank you, k).

Ecole de Leth - An Art Film School

What started as a small fringe project in the south of France last sommer, is expanding with a pop-up in Denmark this fall, 2020.

This is a filmschool celebrating film as an art form. It is based on my father, Jorgen Leth’s ideas on filmmaking. Ideas that have rubbed of on many film directors, writers, photographers , actors and, well film lovers all over the World. Myself included.

This school will celebrate what film can also be. What it should be. Poetry. Sensibility. Observation. Expression.

The list of teachers is INSANE

To mention a couple:

Lars von Trier. Yes. Thats right. He has promised ‘some sort of presence’ in honor of his professor.
Thomas Vinterberg. You got it. The celebration. That guy,.
Jorgen Leth. Naturarally. The perfect Human. The Five Obstructions. I Walk.

More will come. Editors. Writers. Producers. More directors. Series creators. Artists.

Visit Ecole de Leth and sign up for the 12 week course.

GHOSTS OF CITE SOLEIL Poster. Directors Cut.

This was always the poster of my dreams.

The only poster that ever got close to my liking for Ghosts was this one, that I had to beg to make as an alternate out at Nordisk Film. This was unfortunately not the poster that was used in the launch of the movie, but at least it became the cover of the US dvd.

…Which then promptly sold out. Of course. 🙄.

Top 100 All-Time Bestseller on US iTunes !

I am very proud to realise that Man On A Ledge is number 53 on the Top 100 All-Time Bestselling Thriller list on US iTunes. Especially since it is the closest we can get to a de-facto World Video-On-Demand bestseller list as long as there is no official global list.

It is an incredible feeling to be on that list next to some of my personal heroes like; Soderbergh, Spielberg, Villeneuve, Demme, Fincher, and yes, Hitchcock.

On Set with 'Move On' the Web Series

Easter Day, 2012, I got a phonecall; “Can you be in Copenhagen in 1 hour? Some people want to meet you - and if you can come up with an idea for a film-like web-series to shoot in 8 countries, on the way - that would be great.

An hour later I met the very courageous creatives from DDB Tribal, pitched them the fresh idea, and off we went on an 8000 kilometre long writing-while-scouting trip.. I told them I wanted to do it because I was momentarily sick of Hollywood, and wanted to go on a roadtrip with an ultra small crew - like a film family and just like Truffaut had done it. Cut to three months later; on the road with a 100-people crew. 🙄 My own bus, 20 seater airplane, and a lot of attitude. Lots of it. Too much of it, to be honest. From modest to crazy in 2.4 seconds flat.

But boy was that fun.

Man on a Ledge. 2012.

On April 1st 2010, I was in Mexico prepping my CARTEL, when I got a phonecall that the movie was folding and we had to pack it up and leave. I thought it was an Aprils Fool joke of course, but it wasn’t! Turned out the US State Department had called my producer, Brian Grazer, and told him we had to shut it down for security reasons. This was the second shut down on Cartel.. The first time around, we had to shut it down because of a melange of Sean Penn’s lovelife - and my own big mouth. Long story.

Well, anyway, the second time almost killed me.

I decided to take it standing up, not throw in the towel, and take the first available and doable movie, and so three months later I was in New York, prepping Man On A Ledge. What a mad ride that was.

I ended up having probably the worst - and best - time of my life at the same time. The worst, because the movie was becoming something that was not me, and I could do nothing about it. The best because I was finally shooting something. The fifth movie since moving to LA, the one I had worked the least on, was getting committed to film. So weird.

Life is what you make it.

The critics killed it. The audience loves it - and it is still on the All-Time Bestseller list on US iTunes.

Severance, Berlin 2016

I worked on the movie SEVERANCE for the better part of a year (or was it two) until a fall day 2016, when the movie collapsed before shooting because of a tax-structure reform in the UK that had a direct impact on my producers and financiers.

A good lesson to everybody, that the movie business is a miracle of possibles, where finance, timing, and luck has to dance in absolute synchronicity, before you even get to the craft and the storytelling itself.

The movie might get back into life one day - I sure hope so, as I put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into it - bit probably it will be set in another country and will have to go through a rewrite for that, and everything will start again from scratch.-. The long run up towards production was also my longest non-credited writing process ever, which as an added bonus gave me a serious appetite for writing.

The lead character was for a long time supposed to be played by Michael Keaton whom I love. I travelled to LA to talk him into it and he accepted. What a great guy, really. Just all around good and intelligent company. Unfortunately for me, and great for him, about a month after he said he would join our show, he was nominated to an Academy Award for Birdman. His first major showing after years away. Anyway, this left open some massive opportunities for him, and so, off he went.

I won’t tell you who the next guy to take the part was, but it was a true honor to work with him for a beat until the sad end to our time in Berlin.

Maybe later.

The life of the crew.

command central