DR Sales Boards 'Father's House,' Dencik and Dyrholm Sect Doc Hybrid

DR Sales has picked up international rights to "Father's House," a Danish hybrid documentary starring David Dencik ("No Time to Die," "The Chestnut Man") and Trine Dyrholm ("Queen of Hearts," "The Danish Woman"), ahead of its competition slot at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival and selection for IDFA's Signed section.

The Copenhagen-based distributor — also behind the Oscar-winning "Mr Nobody Against Putin" and Sundance winner "A New Kind of Wilderness" is betting on an unusual proposition: a film that mixes fiction, documentary and making-of footage to examine manipulation, abuse and violence inside Faderhuset, a radical Danish Christian sect that operated from the 1990s until its official closure as a religious congregation in 2013.

Three former members expose the sect's inner workings, where exorcism, speaking in tongues and militant Christianity were reportedly everyday practice. Dyrholm plays the sect's charismatic leader Ruth Evensen (now Ruth Kristiansen). Dencik plays former member Jerry, and Laura Kronborg Kjær ("A Fortunate Man," "When the Sun Shines") plays Camilla, who spent seven years inside Faderhuset before leaving and founding the NGO InsideOut to help people exit sectarian communities.

The film is co-directed by Andreas Koefoed ("The Lost Leonardo"), Eva Mulvad ("Enemies of Happiness," "The Good Life") and editor Adam Nielsen ("The Investigation," "The Letter Room"), in his first directing credit.

"We have been very excited about this project for some time. Once we saw the first cut, we were all blown away by how powerful and original the film is," DR Sales Executive Producer Kim Christiansen said.

Why stage reenactments?

Mulvad traced the project's origin to a book by former member Camilla Louise Johnson, which sparked her interest in "cults, group dynamics and why people in a free world long to belong." Johnson — described by Mulvad as "an important gatekeeper" — introduced the directors to other ex-members who "shared their experience in a generous way" and shaped the script.

The co-directors said no footage of the sect's key moments existed, which ruled out a traditional interview-driven documentary. "We wanted the best of both worlds," they said, citing inspiration from Kaspar Astrup's "The Invention of Dr. Nakamats" and Kaouther Ben Hania's "Four Daughters."

A pilot test with Dyrholm and Kjær interacting with Johnson proved decisive. "The dynamic between Camilla and the actors was electric," they said, adding that the hybrid form exposed "how we manipulate reality when making films, whether fiction or documentary" and let the trio build the film around an emotional and psychological structure rather than a linear timeline.

Nielsen, who had edited Mulvad's Karlovy Vary winner "The Good Life" and Koefoed's "The Arms Drop," joked: "I was basically the rug from 'The Big Lebowski' — the one tying the room together." He admitted the experience "definitely gave me a taste for [directing]."

What does the film argue?

The directors resist framing Faderhuset as exceptional. "Father's House isn't fundamentally worse than many other religious sects or cults throughout history," they said. "What truly terrified us wasn't just the group itself, but rather the lengths to which we as humans will go in our desperate search for love, acceptance and a sense of belonging."

They want audiences to trust their instincts: "You can mess with people's heads, you can gaslight them, but you can't mess with their intuition."

Shopped as a 90-minute film or two-part series, "Father's House" was produced by Pernille Rose Grønkjær and Malthe Koch for Danish Documentary and the Nordic broadcasters DR, NRK and SVT. The Danish theatrical release through Camera Film is set for November 19 — the first test of whether a sect story told through stars can reach beyond the festival circuit.