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2026 führt Dänemark als eines der letzten Länder in Europa ein Steueranreizmodell ein, mit dessen Hilfe das Land attraktiver für ausländische Film- und TV-Produktionen werden soll. Das jährliche Gesamtbudget liegt deutlich höher als das in Schweden und Norwegen.

Anna Porse Nielsen, Leiterin der Danish Producers Association (Credit: privat)

In einem der letzten Länder Europas startet in Dänemark 2026 ein Steueranreizmodell, mit dessen Hilfe das Land attraktiver für ausländische Film- und TV-Produktionen gemacht werden soll.

Presseberichten zufolge liegt das jährliche Budget des Steueranreizmodells mit 125 Mio. Dänischen Kronen doppelt so hoch wie das eines vergleichbaren Modells in Schweden und deutlich höher als das des norwegischen Modells. Der Nachlass auf förderfähige Ausgaben soll voraussichtlich 25 Prozent betragen; der genaue Wert sowie andere Parameter würden noch in diesem Jahr festgelegt, wie die neue Leiterin der Danish Producers Association, Anna Porse Nielsen, gegenüber dem US-Branchenblatt „Variety“ erklärte.

Über die Bedeutung des Steueranreizmodells sagte sie: „Wir haben in Dänemark...

Die Produktionsfirma Constantin arbeitet an einer Serien-Adaption des Peter-Höeg-Bestsellers „Fräulein Smillas Gespür für Schnee“. Für den deutschen Markt hat die Produktionsfirma als Partner die Ard Degeto und Netflix bekannt gegeben.

Julia Ormond im Kinofilm „Fräulein Smillas Gespür für Schnee“ (Credit: Constantin)

Die Constantin macht bekanntlich aus dem Peter-Höeg-Bestseller „Fräulein Smillas Gespür für Schnee“ („Smilla’s Sense of Snow“) nach dem Kinoerfolg in den 1990er-Jahren jetzt eine High-End-Serie, bei der Amma Asante Regie führen wird. In einem Interview mit dem Branchenblatt Variety hat Constantin-Chef Oliver Berben jetzt bekannt gegeben, dass die Produktionsfirma auf deutscher Seite mit der Ard Degeto und Netflix zusammenarbeiten wird.

„Lasst uns versuchen die perfekten Partner in jedem Territorium zu finden, aber viele der Rechte auch bei uns zu behalten“, fasst Berben die generelle Constantin-Strategie zusammen. „Die Idee war, aus finanzieller Sicht zwei bis drei Ankerpartner zu finden, bei denen wir ein Sicherheitsnetz von 60 bis 70 Prozent des Budgets haben,...

Oliver Berben, who took the reins of German production and distribution powerhouse Constantin Film on March 1, faces a German media landscape that is “changing radically and quickly,” he says. In response, he is adjusting the company’s approach to the business.

He welcomes the government’s proposed reform of the German Film Law, which will change the country’s production incentives, including for television, and will introduce an obligation on broadcasters and streamers to invest 20% of sales generated in Germany back into European productions, 70% of which would have to be in the German language.

“You have stagnating funding of public broadcasters. You have declining revenues for the private stations. The question is: Is the model functioning altogether? It is not, if we just keep on doing the same thing again and again.”

He adds, “Everything is changing, and these changes, by the way, are good. Us, as producers, we need...

Der Creative Europe Desk Hamburg hat die deutsche Bilanz für das EU-Förderprogramm Media für 2023 vorgelegt. Demnach gingen rund 25 Mio. Euro an Fördermitteln an deutsche Unternehmen. Allein knapp acht Mio. flossen an Produktionsunternehmen, 5,2 Mio. an Verleihunternehmen und Weltvertriebe.

Ein „Leuchtturmprojekt“ bei der Förderlinie für die Herausbringen nicht-nationaler Kinofilme sei „Das Lehrerzimmer“ gewesen. (Credit: Alamode Film)

Es seien „beeindruckende Zahlen“ und ein „starkes Signal für die Zukunft der deutschen Kreativindustrie“. Mit diesen Worten beschreibt der Creative Europe Desk Hamburg die nun vorgelegte deutsche Media-Bilanz für das vergangene Jahr. Denn deutsche Unternehmen profitierten (auch) 2023 in besonderer Weise von den EU-Fördergeldern: Rund 25 Mio. Euro gingen an deutsche Unternehmen, dies sei ein „stolzer Anteil“ von über 14 Prozent an der gesamten Fördersumme von 176 Mio. Euro.

Fast acht Mio. Euro flossen dabei an Produzentinnen und Produzenten für die Entwicklung neuer Filme, Serien, Games und VR-Projekte sowie für die Produktion von TV-Projekten mit hoher internationaler Beteiligung.

Zur Komplettübersicht...

Bei der ifs – Internationale Filmschule Köln ist der dritte Jahrgang des „European Showrunner Training“ gestartet. Erneut unter der Leitung des renommierten dänischen Serienautors und Showrunners Jeppe Gjervig Gram wurden 13 Teilnehmende ausgewählt, darunter auch die Autorin Marie-Therese Thill aus Österreich („School of Champions”).

Die Drehbücher von „School of Champions“ entstanden mit Hilfe von Marie-Therese Thill, die nun am „European Showrunner Training” der ins teilnimmt (Credit: Orf/Superfilm/Stefanie Leo)

Mit ihrem Weiterbildungsangebot „European Showrunner Training” reagiert die ifs auf aktuelle Anforderungen des Serien-Marktes. Mittlerweile ist der dritte Jahrgang gestartet. Unter den laut ifs zahlreichen Bewerbungen wurden 13 qualifizierte Serienautor:innen aus zwölf Ländern ausgewählt. Bei den Teilnehmenden des dritten Jahrgangs handelt es sich um:

• Anna Brotkin, Finnland | „Aikuiset/Adults”, „Rakkaat lapset/Perfect Sisters” (Autorin)

• Tanja Bubbel, Deutschland | „Charité” (Staffelcreator 4. Staffel / Headautorin), „Smilla’s Sense of Snow” (Deutsche Headautorin)

• Charlie Dewulf, Belgien | „Brak/Broke”, „Liefdestips aan Mezelf/Love Tips to Myself”

• Jón Gunnar Geirdal, Island...

The UK’s Screen Cornwall has revealed the first four recipients of its feature film development scheme for projects in the Cornish language, Kernewek, made by local creative talent.

Callum Mitchell, who was the assistant director on Mark Jenkin’s Bait and Enys Men, has written Lanow (Rising Tide). A 10-year-old and his loving father, victims of a devastating housing crisis, treasure one last summer together in a place they call home. Simon Nicholls of Spike Productions produces.

Dedhyow Tesen (Cake Days) follows a young woman is determined to help her terminally ill father complete his bucket list before it’s too late,...

Dramas based on well-known IP and starring A-list talent were front and centre at this year’s Series Mania.

Mediawan, for example, hosted a splashy showcase of its upcoming mini-series The Count of Monte-Cristo, produced by Italy’s Palomar with France’s Demd Productions, from Danish director Bille August, starring British actors Sam Claflin and Jeremy Irons.

During the festival, Paramount+ and France Télévisions also announced they had teamed up for an eight-episode adaptation of Zorro (working title) starring Jean Dujardin, the Oscar-winning actor of The Artist. France Televisions also announced a series commission for Lucky Luke, an adaptation of the cult Belgian comic book.

Top German producer and longtime Constantin exec Martin Moszkowicz has revealed his concerns over “growing anti-Semitism’ in Germany and anger over the muted response from the country’s cultural scene in the wake of the October 7 Hamas terror attacks on Israel.

The Resident Evil producer broached the subject in a recent interview with Munich-based newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung to mark his upcoming departure as chairman of Constantin Film after 10 years in the role, and a total of 30 years at the company. Current Deputy Chairman Oliver Berben will take on the Chairman role from March 1, 2024.

Moszkowicz, whose film and theatre director father survived Auschwitz but lost most his immediate family in the Holocaust, said he had been “outraged” by the silence of the German culture sector in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attacks, which killed at least 1,139 people, most of them Israeli civilians.

“It was one of the most depressing times I’ve personally experienced,...

Ormond alleges sex crimes took place after business dinner in 1995.

Updated: CAA has described allegations by Julia Ormond as “baseless” after the British actress sued Harvey Weinstein on Wednesday for alleged sexual battery nearly 30 years ago and also sued the agency for negligence and breach of fiduciary duty.

In a filing with New York Supreme Court on Wednesday morning which also listed Disney and Miramax as defendants, Ormond, who starred in 1990s hits Legends Of The Fall and Smilla’s Sense Of Snow, alleged Weinstein attacked her in 1995 after a business dinner.

Ormond claimed the disgraced former Hollywood mogul forced her to perform oral sex,...

Ormond alleges sex crimes took place after business dinner in 1995.

Updated: CAA has described allegations by Julia Ormond as “baseless” after the British actress sued Harvey Weinstein on Wednesday for alleged sexual battery nearly 30 years ago and also sued the agency for negligence and breach of fiduciary duty, as well as Disney and Miramax.

In a filing with New York Supreme Court on Wednesday morning Ormond, who starred in 1990s hits Legends Of The Fall and Smilla’s Sense Of Snow, alleged Weinstein attacked her in 1995 after a business dinner.

Ormond claimed the disgraced former Hollywood mogul forced her to perform oral sex,...

Ormond alleges sex crimes took place after business dinner in 1995.

British actress and Legends Of The Fall and Smilla’s Sense Of Snow star Julia Ormond is suing Harvey Weinstein for sexual battery and is also suing CAA, Disney and Miramax.

In a filing with New York Supreme Court on Wednesday, Ormond alleged the assault occurred in 1995 after a business dinner when the disgraced former Hollywood mogul forced her to perform oral sex.

Weinstein, 71, has denied the allegations. He is serving jail time for rape and sex crime convictions and has faced numerous allegations from other women since his criminal...

Ormond alleges sex crimes took place after business dinner in 1995.

British actress and Legends Of The Fall and Smilla’s Sense Of Snow star Julia Ormond is suing Harvey Weinstein for sexual battery and is also taking CAA, Disney and Miramax to court as “enablers”.

In a filing with New York Supreme Court on Wednesday, Ormond alleged the assault occurred in 1995 after a business dinner when the disgraced former Hollywood mogul forced her to perform oral sex.

Weinstein, 71, has denied the allegations. He is serving jail time for rape and sex crime convictions and has faced numerous allegations from other...

Julia Ormond, the English actress best known for her roles in ’90s films such as “Legends of the Fall,” “First Knight” and “Smilla’s Sense of Snow,” is suing Harvey Weinstein for sexual battery.

Ormond is additionally suing CAA, The Walt Disney Company and Miramax. While Weinstein has been named as the defendant in numerous sexual assault lawsuits since exposes published in 2017 in The New York Times and New Yorker uncovered his alleged patterns of misconduct toward dozens of women in the entertainment industry, it is rare for business partners that profited from Weinstein’s work to be named as defendants for supposedly enabling his behavior.

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday morning in New York Supreme Court, obtained by Variety, Ormond claims that Weinstein sexually assaulted her in 1995 after a business dinner when he lured her into giving him a massage, climbed on top of her, masturbated and forced her to give him oral sex.

Leading German producer and distributor is prepping an ambitious 2023 slate.

One of Germany’s leading production and distribution companies, Constantin Film is delivering one of its “most ambitious” slates of films and series this year, according to executive chairman Martin Moszkowicz.

They include Berlinale gala screening Sun And Concrete (Sonne Und Beton), directed by David Wnendt, which Constantin co-producers and distributes, and Paul W.S. Anderson’s fantasy adventure In The Lost Lands, starring Milla Jovovich and Dave Bautista. Hagen, a big budget feature and six-part series based on the epic German Nibelungen saga, has also started shooting, and Constantin is...

Alvin Ing, the Honolulu native who starred on Broadway in a revival of Flower Drum Song and appeared in two editions of Stephen Sondheim’s Pacific Overtures, has died. He was 89.

Ing died Saturday of cardiac arrest amid a battle with Covid-19 at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, a publicist announced. Though he had been fully vaccinated, he had been diagnosed with the virus two weeks earlier.

Ing also appeared in such films as The Final Countdown (1980), Stir Crazy (1980), Troop Beverly Hills (1989), Smilla’s Sense of Snow (1997) and The Gambler (2014).

On television, he had recurring roles on The Doctors and Falcon Crest and ...

Alvin Ing, the Honolulu native who starred on Broadway in a revival of Flower Drum Song and appeared in two editions of Stephen Sondheim’s Pacific Overtures, has died. He was 89.

Ing died Saturday of cardiac arrest amid a battle with Covid-19 at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, a publicist announced. Though he had been fully vaccinated, he had been diagnosed with the virus two weeks earlier.

Ing also appeared in such films as The Final Countdown (1980), Stir Crazy (1980), Troop Beverly Hills (1989), Smilla’s Sense of Snow (1997) and The Gambler (2014).

On television, he had recurring roles on The Doctors and Falcon Crest and ...

Alvin Ing, a pioneering Asian American Broadway actor who appeared in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Flower Drum Song” and Stephen Sondheim’s “Pacific Overtures,” died at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, Calif. on July 31. He was 89.

Ing’s representatives said that the fully-vaccinated actor was diagnosed with pneumonia in mid-July and then contracted Covid-19 a few days later. After battling the illness for two weeks, Ing died due to cardiac arrest.

Born in Honolulu, Ing studied music at the University of Hawaii before moving to New York at age 25 to pursue an acting career. He landed various roles in Off Broadway shows and touring productions before making his Broadway debut in the 1976 original production of Sondheim’s “Pacific Overtures.” He reprised the performance almost 30 years later, when the musical was revived on Broadway in 2004. Ing also starred in the 2002 revival of “Flower Drum Song,” in which he performed the song “My Best Love.

Alvin Ing, a pioneering Asian American actor who appeared on Broadway in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Flower Drum Song and Stephen Sondheim’s Pacific Overtures and whose guest roles on numerous television series stretched from the 1970s until very recently, died July 31 at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California, of Covid-19 complications. He was 89.

Ing’s death was previously confirmed by his representation, Shushu Entertainment, but today his reps disclosed that the fully-vaccinated Ing was first diagnosed with pneumonia in mid-July and then confirmed to have Covid-19 a few days later. After two weeks of battling the illness, he died due to cardiac arrest, they said.

“Honolulu native and American Army veteran with a gift to serve, he felt a duty to himself and his fellow citizens to be fully vaccinated,” said spokesperson Shaina Manlangit in a statement approved by Shushu.

Deaths and hospitalizations from breakthrough Covid are considered to be extremely rare.

Belle and A United Kingdom filmmaker Amma Asante is set to direct Constantin’s latest drama series adaptation of Peter Höeg’s Smilla’s Sense of Snow.

The series, which was already made into a 1997 feature from filmmaker Bille August and starring Julia Ormond, follows Smilla Jaspersen, whose investigation into the mysterious death of an immigrant Inuit child from the projects evolves into a much grander supernatural epic. Her search for answers sets her on a journey to her native home of Greenland, where a mysterious extraterrestrial object hidden deep in the ice and averting evil for millennia is waiting for the right person to unlock its powers. Clive Bradley is writing the most recent adaptation.

EPs of the new TV adaption are Constantin Film’s member of the executive board Oliver Berben and Robert Kulzer. Martin Moszkowicz, CEO of Constantin Film, and who also produced the feature, is producing with Colin Scully,...

Acclaimed British director Amma Asante will direct a drama series adaptation of acclaimed novel “Smilla’s Sense of Snow” for German outfit Constantin Film.

Based on the bestselling book by Peter Höeg, and created and written by Clive Bradley (“Trapped”), the series will follows Smilla Jaspersen, whose investigation into the mysterious death of an immigrant Inuit child from the projects evolves into a much grander supernatural epic. Her search for answers sets her on a journey to her native home of Greenland.

The book was adapted as a film by Bille August in 1997, starring Julia Ormond, and produced by Bernd Eichinger and Martin Moszkowicz. Executive producers of the TV adaption are Constantin Film’s executive board members Oliver Berben and Robert Kulzer and the producer is Constantin CEO Martin Moszkowicz. Colin Scully, Alex Westmore and Brandon Zimon will oversee the project for the company.

The studio is expected to present the project to U.

‘Belle’ helmer Amma Asante is set to direct the TV drama Smilla’s Sense of Snow for Constantin Film.

The series, shortly to be shopped to cable networks and streamers, follows Smilla Jaspersen, whose investigation into the mysterious death of an immigrant Inuit child from the projects evolves into a much grander supernatural epic.

Her search for answers sets her on a journey to her native home of Greenland, where a mysterious extraterrestrial object hidden deep in the ice and averting evil for millennia is waiting for the right person to unlock its powers.

The project is based on Peter ...

Veteran character actor Robert Loggia has died at his home in Los Angeles today at the age of 85. Loggia had been battling Alzheimer's Disease for five years and leaves behind his widow Audrey with whom he had been married for over three decades, three children, and a stepchild.

Starring in his first films back in the late 1950s, worked right up until this year with his last role being in the Canadian horror drama "Sicilian Vampire". Along the way he scored peer recognition including an Oscar nominated turn in the 1986 courtroom thriller "Jagged Edge" alongside Glenn Close and Jeff Bridges, and an Emmy nominated role as the lead in the detective drama series "Mancuso, F.B.I.".

His resume includes key roles in some major movies that ran the gamut in terms of critical and public appeal. Amongst the more notable titles are the likes of "Big," "Scarface, "Independence Day,...

This watery thriller from Insomnia director Erik Skjoldbjærg promises a tale 'based on real-life events' - but don't be expecting even the runway-stretching liberties of Argo, in terms of historical accuracy. Pioneer is a fictitious tale of Norwegian and American deep-sea diving teams collaborating but also competing for the lucrative rights to exploit North Sea oil in the early 1980s, derived fairly abstractly from a number of subsequent real world controversies that were to make the news in the following years.

Descending 500 metres into prototype tin-cans is a family affair for Headhunters' Aksel Hennie and big brother André Eriksen, hampered as they are by arrogant and hyper-competitive American interloper Wes Bentley. When a catastrophic mistake is made in a test-dive, the aftermath of the tragedy haunts Hennie's character, driving him to find out what really went wrong. It's a search which will take him into various nests of corruption at...

As Jenny on "Two and a Half Men," Amber Tamblyn is brash and rash. She's the daughter no one knew Charlie had.

Coming into the CBS Thursday comedy in its 11th season was easier than one might imagine.

"What if I just realized for the first time that Jon Cryer was physically abusive and Ashton Kutcher refused to speak to me and had his entire trailer moved?" Tamblyn asks Zap2it. "They are the two sweetest guys in the whole world. They are so kind and supportive, and so is Conchata Ferrell. She is so funny. I feel like Jenny will become Berta when she grows up.

"I'll help anyone drink," she says of her character. "I will support anyone's alcoholism or drug addiction, I don't care. Holland Taylor is so extraordinary."

She likens this to joining "House" during its long run, but working on a comedy is easier.

In her spare time,...

Bille August ("The House of the Spirits," "Smilla's Feeling for Snow") is attached to direct an adaptation of Stefan Zweig's 1938 novel "Beware of Pity" at Senator Films.

August and scribe Greg Latter, who previously worked together on "Goodbye Bafana" and "Night Train to Lisbon," are re-teaming on the English language project which will sport a German and international cast.

The story follows a young lieutenant invited to dine at at a Hungarian aristocrat’s castle. There he meets a parylysed young woman who falls in love with him.

Lars Sylvest and Helge Sasse will produce. Filming takes place next year in Bavaria, Austria and Hungary ahead of a 2015 release.

Source: Screen Daily...

55-year-old Scottish actor Peter Capaldi has scored the highly talked about role of the twelfth incarnation of The Doctor in BBC's long-running "Doctor Who". Capaldi replaces Matt Smith whose version is set to regenerate during this year's Christmas special.

A life long Who fan, Capaldi has previously been a part of the Who-universe. He had a guest starring role as an ancient Roman merchant named Caecilius in the 2008 episode "Fires of Pompeii," and had a major role as an ultimately tragic Government man named John Frobisher in the mini-series "Torchwood: Children of Earth".

With over three decades of experience, the role of The Doctor is quite different to what has been Capaldi's most defining role to this date - the frequently swearing Government spin doctor Malcolm Tucker in the acidic satire "The Thick of It" and its 2009 feature "In the Loop".

The actor has logged in credits in practically a...

Denzel Washington, Dionne Warwick, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Scarlett Johansson, Morgan Freeman, Dietmar Bär: Golden Camera Awards Initially a television award, the German weekly Hörzu's Golden Camera Award now covers a variety of categories, including movies, music, sports, pop culture, and even activism. Unlike the German Film Academy's prestigious Lola Awards — Germany's equivalent of the Oscars — the Golden Camera is basically a pop award. At a ceremony held Saturday, Feb. 4, at the Berlin headquarters of Hörzu's publishing house Axel Springer, this year's winners in the international movie categories were Scarlett Johansson and Denzel Washington, while Morgan Freeman received a Lifetime Achievement trophy. A couple of weeks ago, Freeman received a similar honor — the Cecil B. DeMille Award — from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Additionally, Dionne Warwick received her own Lifetime Achievement Golden Camera in the music category. Now, not that the U.S. media would know or care about this little detail,...

Hot property in the mid-90s, Julia Ormond turned her back on Hollywood in favour of political activism – which may just have saved her sanity

Sitting by a hotel pool in Santa Monica with a cappuccino, Julia Ormond is recalling, and with some relish, her first movie disaster, the Cannes premiere of Peter Greenaway's The Baby of Mâcon in 1993.

"The film was so disturbing. There's a mercy-killing of a child, and its body is then cut up and preserved as relics in jars and disseminated across the world, as happened with saints – you know, 'I present you with the finger of Saint John the Whatever.' So the movie's a pretty heavy slog already," she guffaws. "But someone made a mistake with all the programmes, posters and signs – and they misnamed it The Baby of Bacon! And then in the screening itself, there's this scene that goes on for ever,...

First of all, that header pic is the one of the first images when you google "Julia Ormond Man of Steel." It's completely inappropriate, but I didn't think anybody would mind. Secondofly*, well played, Messrs. Snyder and Nolan.

Deadline is reporting that the star of Smilla's Sense of Snow seems to be signing on to Zack Snyder's upcoming Superman/Superman II remake, The Man of Steel. Though, you might have caught on to that by now. You also might recall that last week I suggested Cate Blanchett would make a suitable counterpart to Russell Crowe's Jor-El, but Julia Ormond as Lara Lor-Van is nothing to sniff at. I'm still of the mind that it's a thankless role, and one that doesn't really need this caliber of actor, but I can't exactly find fault, either. True, Ormond was really only popular in the U.S. for a couple of years in the 1990s,...

Any chick who makes it her New Year's resolution to make someone pay is clearly my kind of gal. So let me introduce you to Smilla, the voice of the above resolution, and the titular character brought to life by Julia Ormond in Bille August's 1997 icy suspense thriller, Smilla's Sense of Snow. Smilla is smart and hot and very very angry, and when a tiny little boy from her apartment building - maybe the only person she had a soft spot for in her icy heart - drops from the roof, Smilla is compelled to make sense of his death. Smilla is certain that he was murdered, and on a mission of vengeance she doggedly uncovers clues and fearlessly chases bad guys through the cold and snow, in a manner that perhaps only a smart, hot, and angry super chick could.

Unlike any other movie we're airing right now,...

The bleak Scandinavian landscapes have inspired a series of hit books about dour detectives, and more writers are now lining up to claim the Nordic crime crown

Among the growing band of the faithful – the millions of readers drawn to the bleak tradition of Swedish crime fiction – the litany can be recited with ease: Inspector Martin Beck, created by Sjöwall and Wahlöö in the 1960s, begat Henning Mankell's Wallander, and then Wallander begat Stieg Larsson's Salander, the girl with the dragon tattoo.

With new episodes of Kenneth Branagh's Wallander promised and big-screen versions of Larsson's Millennium Trilogy due out soon in English as well as Swedish, what started as a genre with cult appeal has become part of the money-making mainstream.

Yet well before Mankell and Larsson's crime-solving anti-heroes reached our cinema screens, true aficionados of this Scandinavian genre understood that the family tree was more complex.

Screened at the Toronto International Film Festival

TORONTO -- A low-key crime thriller navigating the path to moral redemption taken by an ethically challenged lawyer, Return to Sender marks a return to form for Pelle the Conqueror director Bille August, whose more recent films, including Smilla's Sense of Snow and the 1998 version of Les Miserables had problems finding their center.

While very deliberately paced, the picture re mains compelling courtesy of a script by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade that, for the most part, chooses not to connect the usual dots -- as well as nicely modulated performances by Aidan Quinn and Connie Nielsen.

It may lack the commercial drive of a John Grisham vehicle, but Return to Sender could still carve out a modest theatrical niche with the right distributor.

Quinn has landed one of his more complex roles as Frank Nitzche, a defense lawyer on a serious losing streak. He's lost his last three capital cases, with his last client going to the electric chair.

Broke and cynical, he has started up a lucrative little side business by corresponding with death row convicts and selling their letters to the highest bidders.

But when his biggest score yet -- a woman (Nielsen) awaiting execution after being found guilty in the kidnap and murder of a young child -- has stopped writing to him, Nitzche heads to Oklahoma to pay her a jail visit.

At first, their encounters have a predictable cat-and-mouse dynamic, but soon something deeper and more interesting develops between them, leading to a major crisis of conscience for Frank as he begins to question her guilty verdict.

August runs a tightly controlled ship here, if perhaps a little too controlled, especially during the film's expositional first half-hour, which occasionally takes on the visual equivalent of a Southern drawl.

Once the story clicks into gear, however, the level of involvement remains relatively high.

The subtle mood shifts give Quinn and Nielsen plenty to play with, while Kelly Preston, as the lawyer fighting a losing battle to exonerate her client, Sara-Marie Maltha, as Nielsen's blind sister, and Timothy Daly, as Maltha's sight-impaired husband, round out the well-chosen cast.

Return to Sender

Intandem Films

Credits:

Director: Bille August

Producer: Michael Lunderskov

Executive producers: Gary Smith, Paul White, Michael H. Laursen, Peter H. Laursen, Andrew Brown

Screenwriters: Neal Purvis & Robert Wade

Director of photography: Dirk Bruel

Production designer: Viggo Bentzon

Editor: John Scott

Music: Harry Gregson-Williams

Cast:

Charlotte Cory: Connie Nielsen

Frank Nitzche: Aidan Quinn

Susan Kennan: Kelly Preston

Martin North: Timothy Daly

Stella: Sara-Marie Maltha

MPAA Rating: Not yet rated

Running time -- 103 minutes...