Copenhagen-based Monolit Film, the production outfit behind Katrine Brocks’ 2022 San Sebastian premiere “The Great Silence” and “Bad Bitch” director Patricia Bbaale Bandak’s forthcoming feature debut “Wannabe,” continues to grow its slate with a pair of new films from emerging Danish directors Christian Bengtson and Mads Mengel.
Monolit producer and co-founder Victor Cunha announced that his company is prepping “The Migrants,” Bengtson’s follow-up to his 2022 drama “Chrysanthemum,” and is in post-production on Mengel’s debut feature, “The Guest.” Mengel, who’s best known for his work behind the camera on the Danish miniseries “My Different Ways” and “Suplex,” will be presenting his work in progress at Finnish Film Affair, the annual industry event running parallel to the Helsinki Intl. Film Festival – Love & Anarchy, which takes place Sept. 24 – 26.
“The Guest” unfolds over the course of a weekend at a seaside hotel, where new parents Karl and Emilie have invited friends and family to celebrate their son’s naming party. Their hopes for an intimate gathering, however, are dashed with the unexpected arrival of Karl’s estranged mother, Vibeke, who is intent on rejoining the family and proving herself as a grandmother.
Before long, tensions rise, old patterns resurface, and long-buried family dynamics reemerge. What begins as a celebration slowly unravels into a confrontation with the past, in what the filmmakers describe as “a sharply observed drama about roles we inherit, the people we try to become and the impossibility of ever fully escaping where we come from.”
Speaking to Variety ahead of Finnish Film Affair, Mengel — who co-wrote the script with Christian Bengtson — said he “wanted to make a film about family dynamics and dysfunctional families.” “On a deeper level, I wanted to make a film about forgiveness and letting go of the past,” he added.
The director noted that “The Guest” has been “a long way coming,” and was initially conceived when he and producer Victor Cunha first bandied about the concept as students in film school. The years since have not only brought professional success for both men, but fatherhood, an experience that helped inform Mengel’s approach to his subject matter.
“I realized if I didn’t let go of the grudges and the pain I bore with me from my childhood, I would be forced to repeat the pattern in some way,” he said. “I also realized how difficult it is to be a parent. And I realized my parents were just people themselves when they had me.”
Also upcoming on Monolit’s slate is writer-director Bengtson’s follow-up to his 2022 drama “Chrysanthemum.” Co-written with Nikolaj Arcel, “The Migrants” follows the change in fortunes for a sheep-farming family when the wolf returns to the Danish countryside two centuries after its disappearance, dividing a close-knit community in what the filmmakers describe as “a mythical tale of the struggle between humans and animals for survival.”
In a director’s statement, Bengtson described the real-life fallout in his rural hometown of Thy when, in 2012, a wolf appeared for the first time in 200 years, sparking what he called “a long-standing, highly sensitive conflict that starkly divides rural and urban communities.”
“For me, the conflict is not really about the wolf itself, but about what the wolf represents. It ignites powerful, accumulated emotions among the working class — people who, for years, have not been heard,” he said. “The conflict is straightforward, but the setting reveals glimpses of a country and a working-class underbelly that has long been hit by urbanization, reforms and centralization — forces I have witnessed in my own upbringing and seen play out in my family.
“‘The Migrants’ will look at people living on the margins of our country, working in professions that are vanishing or under threat in a rapidly changing world,” Bengtson added.
“The Guest” and “The Migrants” mark the latest ventures for the rising production outfit Monolit, which Cunha co-founded with Pernille Tornøe and Emily Nicoline Quist in 2019. The company is developing Bbaale Bandak’s eagerly anticipated “Wannabe,” a ’90s-set film about four girls who get together to form a group when a national TV show announces a music video competition. The director’s groundbreaking TV series, “Bad Bitch,” was the first Danish show boasting an ensemble cast of Black actors. Also in early development is “After the Sun,” the feature adaptation of Jonas Eika’s debut collection of stories, which will be directed by Danish Iranian filmmaker Ánitá Beikpour.
“At Monolit, we champion filmmakers with a personal point of view; stories rooted in specificity that open up to something universal,” said Cunha. “‘The Guest’ examines the fragile bonds of family as a son faces his estranged mother, while ‘The Migrants’ portrays a community grappling with change and survival in the wake of political decisions. Different in scope, both films reflect our drive for intimate, character-driven cinema that feels both urgent and timeless.”
