Better than the original book

This is now the fourth and final production for our production company Zentropa. When the rights were granted, we had the option of four film adaptations - and of course we went for it. The books were already huge bestsellers at the time, selling 600,000 to 800,000 copies per book.

We have already taken certain liberties. Anyone familiar with the books will know that the two characters Carl and Assad are actually much older. Of course, we also had to cut back in many places, as the novels are pretty hefty tomes. But the core of the story is exactly the same as in the novel - including the action, suspense and morbid humour.

Cinema audiences tend to be slightly disappointed by novel adaptations. So we knew what we were getting ourselves into. With the Jussi Adler-Olsen film adaptations, however, we've often heard from fans that we've created something of our own that people like. With "Contempt" there were even comments on the Internet from people who liked the film version better than the book. That is of course a huge compliment.

In the Elbchaussee, at the fish market, in Blankenese, at the harbour, in Altona hospital, but also a lot on the streets and in backyards - actually once through the entire city. We had a total of 27 out of 40 shooting days in Hamburg and the surrounding area.

This actually works very well. Maybe it's also because Hamburg used to be part of Denmark. We could certainly also film Hamburg in Copenhagen. The two cities are simply very compatible. Even the Danish cinema audience didn't notice in "Contempt" that we hardly ever filmed in Copenhagen.

The filming conditions in Hamburg were simply better than in Denmark. You get permits for shooting very quickly for locations that would simply take much longer in Denmark, such as a section of motorway. There is a scene in the film where a car overturns and bursts into flames. The authorities in Hamburg work hand in hand. And the funding from the FFHSH naturally also helped to realise the project here.

It was a tough shoot as it was very cold between January and March last year. When we shot the stunt with the car rollover in the southern harbour area, everything went well with the stunt. However, when the stunt was over and the fire brigade was supposed to extinguish the car, the pipes were frozen and there was no water coming out of the fire engines because it was minus 10 degrees at night. We then got the fire out with fire extinguishers. However, the motorway was so badly damaged at that point that we had to hire a company to repair it.

In Denmark, it is the most successful Danish-language film to date with around 800,000 cinema-goers, or almost 20 per cent of the population. That would be the equivalent of around 16 million people going to the cinema for a film in Germany.