Danish movie producer Per Holst died Saturday, Aug. 23. He was 86.
Holst’s loss of life was confirmed by his son, Anders Holst, who spoke to Danish TV 2.
Holst left behind a culturally vital physique of labor, together with his breakthrough animation movie “Benny’s Bathtub,” which was launched in 1971. He additionally produced the 1987 Oscar-winning movie “Pelle the Conqueror.” His different credit embrace “Zappa,” “The Component of Crime,” “Flaming Hearts,” “Hugo the Jungle Animal” and “Jingle Waltz.”
Holst bought his begin within the movie world when he grew to become a runner in Nordisk Movie’s promoting division. He then labored in commercials earlier than the discharge of “Benny’s badekar.” In a 2020 interview with Kosmorama, Holst admitted the movie’s group was in a position to make it “actually cheaply.” As he put it (through a translation of the unique interview), “I feel we agreed that everybody would get 300 kroner a day in the event that they did one thing, and it went very well.”
Holst additionally admitted a profession as a producer was not simple to keep up, particularly since predicting the success of a venture will be troublesome. “On ‘The Farewell Hour’ we had a lab credit score of 1,000,000, I feel, a minimum of 500,000, however we misplaced a minimum of 500,000 on that movie,” he stated. “Not a soul got here … 500,000 was some huge cash again then. That was a complete 12 months’s revenue that went into that movie, and naturally we had been a little bit scared by that.”
Elsewhere, Holst additionally stated he would have “most popular to be a director” however others had been “extra proficient than me” so he landed in producing — a swap that ended up working nicely for him. As he put it, “The benefit of being a director or having educated as a director is which you can go into all of the phases and become involved, and you’ll bear in mind your miles of movie and say that that clip is just not adequate. These are some issues that you realize one thing about.”
Holst additionally acted as director of Nordisk Movie from 1991 to 2002 after which additionally based the manufacturing firms PH3 and Asta Movie in 2002. He was chairman of the European Movie Academy from 2000 to 2005.
Per Holst was born on March 28, 1939, in Denmark and is survived by his spouse Kristina Møller and their youngsters.