Trine Dyrholm Unveiled As Toxic Mother In Karlovy Vary Film The Guest

EXCLUSIVE: Danish director Mads Mengel’s debut feature The Guest world premieres in competition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in July and Deadline can reveal a first clip.

Queen of Hearts and The Girl with the Needle actress Trine Dyrholm co-stars a woman estranged from children who turns up uninvited at a weekend-long naming party for her son’s firstborn child at a luxury season resort.

The son want’s her gone, but his sister insists there won’t be any issues. Over one tense weekend, old patterns and buried wounds surface in front of in-laws and guests, until the celebration fractures into a collision.

Dyrholm is joined in the cast by Simon Bennebjerg (The Pact, Promised Land) as the son, and Josephine Park (The Nurse, Oxen) as the sister.

Mengel graduated from the National Film School of Denmark in 2019, with his graduation film, For Juliane being Danish Academy Award-nominated.

He has since directed a number of drama series including My Different Ways (2020), and Supplex (Viaplay/SkyShowtime, 2024), which was nominated for Best Fiction Series at the Danish TV Awards.

The Guest is his feature debut. He wrote the screenplay together with Christian Bengtson.

It is the first time a Danish film has been selected for Karlovy Vary’s main competition since 2015 when Daniel Dencik’s Gold Coast made the cut.

The film is produced by Victor Cunha under his Copenhagen-based Monolit Film banner. His previous credits include TV series Dark Horse, which had its international premiere in the main competition at Canneseries and feature-length documentary Death of a Saint.

The Guest is sold internationally by LevelK.