Competition Section “A Hijacking” Press Conference: Notes & Quotes
Date & Time:
October 21st (Sunday), from 13:30 @movie café
Appearance:
Søren Malling (Actor), Tomas Radoor (Producer)

 
Here are some notes and quotes:
Q:Who came up with the idea of making a film about hijacking?
 
Tomas Radoor (TR):a couple of years ago I met with Tobias Lindholm, the Director, at the Cannes Film Festival. We had previously worked together on a prison movie called “R”. At Cannes, he pitched me the idea of a movie about hijacking a Danish vessel and I immediately thought it was a great idea. Tobias is so talented that it only took a year to write it and finance it.

 
Q:There was a great balance of character between the chef on the ship and the CEO sitting in the office. How did you go about creating your character as CEO?
 
Søren Malling (SM): I spent about five to six months researching…as you can see, I don’t dress like a typical CEO! Actually, I had the chance to meet and spend a lot of time with a real Danish CEO of a shipping company based in Copenhagen. He showed me his office and I watched him how he behaved, like how he sat on his chair and took his jacket off. The shipping business is quite a closed business and it’s about a lot of money. This Danish CEO actually was in the same situation a few years ago. A Danish shipping vessel has been hijacked in the Somalian Gulf and he was the negotiator. He was the one talking on the phone with the Somalian pirates. I had the chance to interview him about this incident and what he said really inspired me. I must say that I probably couldn’t have done this film if I hadn’t met this CEO.

 
Q:What kind of preparations did you do to portray what took place on the ship?
 
TR:We saw some films about ships being hijacked and we did a lot of research on previous hijacking cases that were afflicted on Danish vessels. Also, we were very blessed with the people we met—like the CEO Søren met as well as this other guy who is a real-life negotiator. We had transcripts of actual negotiations which gave us an insight into what actually goes on in real-life negotiations of hijacked vessels.
 
Q:Did you have the chance to interview a real pirate during your researching stage?
 
TR:No. But this film is not about being a pirate. Rather it is about the human consequences of experiencing a hijack. I can’t say that it wouldn’t have been interesting to talk to a real pirate but we were more interested in telling the story about people being hijacked.
 
Q:Why did you only use sounds, no images in the scene where the pirates come on board for the first time?
 
TR:It was a decision made on the script level that we didn’t want to show the pirates getting on board because that’s not what the story is about—our story is about human tragedy, not action.
 
Q:Why were the days passing stamped on every scene up until the last scene?
 
TR:The feeling of the whole movie should be that this situation never ends. Hijacking is a tragedy. People are being hurt emotionally and physically and it’s not easy to let go of that pain.
 
Q:There are many amateur actors in this film. How was it working with them?
 
SM:With amateur actors, sometimes they’re good and sometimes not. But the same can be said about professional actors! In this film there’s O’Conner, who is a real-life negotiator working for a shipping company in Denmark. When Tobias saw him he decided to use him as he was because he was so good at what he did.
 
TR:Tobias co-directed a prison movie called “R” in which there is only one professional actor. The rest of the cast are ex-convicts. In that sense, this is probably Tobias’ method.
 

 
Competition
A Hijacking

Director/Screenplay :
Tobias Lindholm
Producer :
René Ezra
Tomas Radoor
Cast：
Johan Philip Asbæk
Søren Malling
Dar Salim