Henning Carlsen

The Wolf at the Door

Chronicling a period of time in Paul Gauguin's life, this film follows him through his struggles in love and the financial problems caused by the inability to sell his artwork.

The Leap

Tobias Jacobsen is 42. When the doctors tell him he is fatally ill, the earth opens up beneath him and he finds himself plunging into the abyss. It makes him think of the time he was 13 and his girlfriend got him to jump off the balcony of her father's house with a sun umbrella for a parachute. Two stories separated by 29 years are told in parallel, but gradually intertwine into one drama. Both stories have moments of joy and tragedy, as fates wondrously separate and are brought back together again. It is a story about making a leap of faith, trusting in yourself and realizing that, ultimately, life is no good without humour, even of the darker variety.

Next of Kin

Gathered at a funeral for a successful business man, the testament is to be read. They will all inherit, with a big IF; if the family company is to be joint run by all the heirs.

Hunger

In 1890, Pontus, the starving writer, wanders the streets of Christiania, in search of love and a chance to get his work published. All he meets is defeat and suffering while his sense of reality is withering. One moment he is delighted and the next he curses everybody. All the time he manages to maintain human dignity and pride.

Your Money or Your Life

An architect experiences health problems following a professional and personal setback. The conflicts culminate when he discovers that the businesspeople who want him to work for them are not only involved in financial crime, but also murder.

Da Svante forsvandt

Svante has disappeared and a journalist seeks Benny to hear about his relationship with Svante. In retrospect be seen Benny and Svante with Svante lived with Mrs. Jensen in Copenhagen. When Benny and Svante last meeting would Benny sure to Svante show was released. Benny seek police to report Svante missed and have given a description of Svante. For several years, we follow Benny hunt for Svante including through interviews with Nina. Police seek out the places where Svante traded and the nerve clinic he was hospitalized.

I Wonder Who's Kissing You Now

In this rom-com Sam is having problems with both his professional life and his marriage. His career as a film director has dried up, while at home he's sure that his new bride is having an affair. He might be right as she's started seeing a dentist who likes rough se

Memories of My Melancholy Whores

To celebrate his 90th birthday, an old single journalist, Sabio, wants something special from Rosa Cabarcas’s brothel: an intense night of love with a virgin teenager. The madam finds him the ideal young woman, Delgadina, a factory worker, who is selling her virginity to support her family. When he sees Delgadina sleeping angelically, he loses interest in pure pleasure and falls in love with her. That love was not meant to be true, but fate changes, and that hope is born of an opportunity for unbridled love.

Hvad med os?

Martin has just returned home from Africa and meets Lis at an anti-nuclear demonstration. They begin a relationship, but it is disrupted by his memories of the war. Martin seeks out his old group from the war, but the others are unwilling to talk about the past.

Pan

When Edvarda arrives at the little Norwegian village, to stay with some family, she find the Lt., Thomas Glahn, very interesting. Soon they fall in love. It's a very passionate relationship, but this leads to problems. Both of them are very strong in their opinions, and both are behaving a little strange. Love turns to hate, and instead of doing all they can to please each other, they do all they can to hurt the other person psychological. They both do a great job, and what began as a love story turns into a sad and depressing story of two ruined persons. The story is told by Thomas Glahn from his "exile" in Thailand, where he in the beginning of the movie receives two green feathers from Edvarda.

Are You Afraid?

This documentary examines a feature of Danish life in the late '60s and early '70s: the political commune. In a series of stiff and unrevealing interviews with members of the Kloevedal Commune, "Mao's Pleasure," director Carlssen seeks to discover why they have chosen to live communally. Turning the tables on the director, members of the commune also interview people who live ordinary, middle-class lives, ostensibly to find out why they chose their "lifestyles." Other footage concerns the Annisse Commune, a less radical organization which predates the Kloevedal Commune by decades. A highlight of the film is an interview with a very old woman who lives with and talks chiefly with her cats.

A Happy Divorce

After having been rescued from suicide, a young man is the object of a bet by his doctor that the doctor can help him recover his joy in life. Ironically, the doctor's life is not a very happy one either, and his boast has a hollow sound. For one thing, although he seemingly has a "happy divorce," in which he, his ex-wife and her new husband are all great pals, it's not true. He wants his wife back. All sorts of complications arise out of these lies and distortions.

Ung

The third and final part of Carlsen's documentary trilogy explores what it means to be young or old.

De gamle

Henning Carlsen's cinéma vérité trilogy on life and relationships begins with a portrait of elderly people in Denmark.

Did Somebody Laugh?

The late 1930s. A young enemployed, unskilled worker walks through the streets of Copenhagen, sustaining himself partly on the dole and free soup-kitchen meals and partly on day-dreams. He spends time at a cemetry studying headstone inscriptions. Mild-mannered and of poetic bent, he understands little of an intellectual friend's advice and shies away from the love of a woman who shares her bed with him.

The Cats

A group of women are workmates at a laundry. Rike is spreading a rumor about the manager Marta, a rumor that Marta is a lesbian and that she once tried to seduce Rike. This leads to an explosive situation at the workplace.

Oh, to Be on the Bandwagon!

This is a film about the stuff dreams are made of, yet, there is nothing elevated in this concept, on the contrary. The characters around the bar Strudsen (the ostrich) are doing what ostriches do, hiding themselves from the threats of life and keeping their dreams to themselves. Scriptwriter Benny Andersen being a poet is rendering a loving portrait of a number of persons, who fail to try to make their dreams come true, possibly not being sufficiently dissatisfied with their life after all. The manager would like a bar of his own but dare not admit to it, the butcher would like to be an opera singer, the window cleaner (sorry, window polisher) is secretly in love with the bar lady, but dare not show it and the pianist willingly listens to all the different dreams being presented to him. This film was the best accomplished movie from Henning Carlsen since his debut with 'Sult'.

We Are All Demons

A veteran sea captain abducts his niece for what he believes is his last chance at love. As the sad demon of the ocean Klabautermanden watches the passing of doomed ships, the niece awakens in her uncle's cabin. She makes him marry her but never allows the tyrannical captain to ever touch her. For eight years, the ship never docks as the malnourished crew wishes for death.

Dilemma

The story begins when Toby (Ivan Jackson), a young English businessman, arrives in South Africa to take charge of a publishing firm. He knows little about apartheid and so at first sees no contradiction in developing a relationship with an elite, upper-class white woman and with a woman dedicated to fighting apartheid. But as Toby makes friends with one of the black South Africans (Zaku Mokae), and as he registers both the subtle and more obvious, deep-seated racial prejudices of the minority white population, some of the truth of the oppression here begins to dawn. That is brought to a head when tragedy strikes.

People Meet and Sweet Music Fills the Heart

A dancer and a Danish student meet on a train; she is going on tour to Rio, and he decides to follow her. Based on the novel by Jens August Schade.

Haakon VII – Norges konge i krig og fred

The documentary is a cavalcade of King Haakon VII's life from his arrival in Christiania in the autumn of 1905 until May 17, 1952, the year he turned 80.