Daniel movie based on true story about man captured by ISIS in Syria: Oplev

Mr. Oplev believes that. Mr. Oplev said “The US is a traditionally bad market for foreign films. His film We Shall Overcome was distributed in India”.

Streaming services will slowly break the hold of big studios and will prove beneficial for small film-makers. However at the same time they are increasing the cost of local film-making said Neil Arden Oplev, director of the Danish Movie Daniel while speaking to media in IFFI 2019 at Panaji, Goa today. 

 “US film-making is driven by big studios while Europe adopts an independent form of film-making. Indian film-making is more like US film making and it will catch up faster than Europe with movie-making in Los Angeles. European films are shot on a small scale and they are medium budgeted films and sometimes film-makers have to depend on the European Union, Governments for getting funds for the film.” Mr. Oplev added.

On Daniel, he said “My movie is based on a true story about a young man captured by ISIS in Syria. It was too compelling for me to go back and shoot a movie based on it.” The movie was screened under the Master Frames category that features films by master filmmakers of international repute. 

Mr. Oplev believes that. Mr. Oplev said “The US is a traditionally bad market for foreign films. His film We Shall Overcome was distributed in India”.   Mr. Oplev added that it is risky for distributors to buy foreign films. European film-makers are trying to tap the Chinese market. Mr. Oplev opined that awards are over-rated however they help one trying to enter film-making in foreign countries. 

Director Riccardo Salvetti of the Italian film Rwanda which is competing for ICFT- UNESCO Gandhi Medal in the festival was also present in the press conference.“Our film is based on a true story. Since it’s an African centered movie, nobody was interested and we faced a lot of resistance in our country. Due to the low budget, we did shooting near my house in Italy. However, the location was so similar that many Rwandan people who got the news about the shooting, though that we are somewhere in Rwanda.” He said He added that the most difficult part was to adopt from the screenplay.” I tried to keep a balance between theatre and movie in this film. It was stimulating. I tried to mix genres and languages.  We are trying to put this movie on Netflix and are also arranging screenings based on online requests.” 

Erik Pollumaa, director of movie Scandinavian Silence was also present in the press conference, Mr. Pollumaa said he preferred the collaboration in film-making. Getting correct images and angles was the most difficult part for him. He believes that awards are good for recognising people and the reason behind East European films having bleak color scapes is their bleak themes and storylines. However, he added that they make comedies too.  

(With Inputs from PIB)