Magnolia Takes Tobias Lindholm's AFI Fest-Winner 'A Hijacking' Hostage for North America

Magnolia Pictures has picked up North American rights to Danish director Tobias Lindholm's second feature "A Hijacking." The film, which follows the complex fallout after a cargo ship is taken hostage by Somali pirates, has had a strong fest streak, including Venice, Toronto and AFI Fest, where it took home the Audience Award in the New Auteurs section as well as some strong word of mouth.

Lindholm also co-wrote AFI Fest entry "The Hunt" with director Thomas Vinterberg.

Magnolia is planning a second-quarter 2013 theatrical release for the film.

Below, some critics weigh in:

The Hollywood Reporter:

"One of the more unheralded standouts at this year's Venice, Denmark's A Hijacking (Kapringen) is a tensely economical study of leadership, teamwork and negotiation in high-pressure crisis situations… Working effectively with the professional actors in the cast, meanwhile, real-life marine security expert Gary Skjoldmose Porter further boosts the general air of hard-knock versimilitude in a production which illuminatingly and sensitively dramatizes an easily-overlooked global crime phenomenon."

Variety:

"Hostage thrillers are all-too-often shrill affairs, with clock-watching screenwriters wringing maximum melodrama from spiraling disorder. Not so Tobias Lindholm's superb "A Hijacking," which actually grows more chillingly subdued as its nightmare scenario unfolds. A fictional but sweatily plausible account of a Danish cargo ship ambushed by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean, which alternates between tensions onboard and in the Copenhagen negotiation chamber, it's a formidable sophomore feature from the already accomplished writer-helmer. Though not the high-octane genre piece suggested by the premise, "Hijacking" should find itself sailing far friendlier international waters after a healthy festival run."