Director: Bille August
Country/Region: Denmark
Running Time: 115 mins
Production Company: SF Studios Production, Motor
World Sales: REinvent Studios
Producer: Jesper Morthorst, Karin Trolle
Screenplay: Christian Torpe
Cinematographer: Manuel Alberto Claro
Editor: anus Billeskov Jansen, J, Anne Østerud
Sound: Christian H. Lund, Jonas Lanqkilde, Srdian Kurpiel
Music: Frederic Vercheval
Production Designer: Jette Lehmann
Cast: Birthe Neumann, Simon Bennebierq, Asta August, Nanna Skaarup Voss
Aged 63 Karen Blixen is at the pinnacle of her fame and next in line to win the Nobel Prize for literature. It has been 17 years since she gave up her famous farm in Africa only to return to Denmark with her life in ruins. Devastated by syphilis and having lost the love of her life she has reinvented herself as a literary sensation. She is an isolated genius, however, until the day she meets a talented 30-year-old poet. She promises him literary stardom if he in return will obey her unconditionally 一 even at the cost of him losing everything else in his life.
Bille August, a Danish director. He is known for Pelle the Conqueror (1987), which won the Golden Palm Award at the 41st Cannes Film Festival and the 61st Oscar for Best Foreign Film. In 1992, his feature film The Best Intentions won Cannes' top prize for the second time. In 2017, he joined the 7th Beijing International Film Festival as Jury President of Tiantan Award. In 2019, his film A Fortunate Man won the Best Film at the 9th Beijing International Film Festival.
The Pact is in every way an incredible and deeply fascinating story about the strange and explosive friendship between the world famous writer Karen Blixen and the young, promising, ambitious and newlywed poet Thorkild BjØrnvig.
The Pact is a psychological drama, a relationship drama, which takes place in picturesque surroundings, filled with contradictions and contrasts. The everlasting story about seducing and the wanting to be seduced, about bold art of manipulation, about guilt and innocence, about a very unusual friendship between two deeply gifted people where desire and needs lead to a fatal commitment. A dramatic story about a dangerous pact, about the big consequences of an unavoidable dependence, a suspenseful connection between two of the biggest personalities in Denmark.