Nils Malmros

In 2013, Malmros wrote and directed Sorrow and Joy (Danish: Sorg og glæde) about the tragic events in which his wife killed their 9-month-old daughter. It was selected as the Danish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 87th Academy Awards, but was not nominated.

In 2009, Malmros released another coming-of-age story, Aching Hearts (Kærestesorger). Filmed over a three-year period with teenagers in Viborg, the movie repeated the filming techniques and themes from Malmros' Tree of Knowledge.

For his next film, Malmros for the first time chose a story from outside of his childhood environs. Malmros' Barbara (1997) is an adaptation of the classic Danish novel by Jørgen-Frantz Jacobsen set in the Faroe Islands. The film about a minister who falls in love and marries a promiscuous woman received the Audience Award at the Rouen Nordic Film Festival as well as the 1998 Robert Award for Best Film. For his 2002 film, Facing the Truth (At kende sandheden), Malmros returned to his personal experience with semi-biographical tale about his father who was a pioneer in brain surgery. Shot in black-and-white documentary style, the film relates the hardships of a young neurosurgeon struggling through a medical lawsuit. Malmros, intent on the film's realism, used his surgical background by performing all of the film's brain surgery scenes himself. The film was nominated for the 2003 Bodil Award for Best Danish Film and Malmros accepted the 2003 Danish Film Academy's Robert Award for Film of the Year.

Kærlighedens smerte (1992) ("Pains of love") is about a lively young high school girl who falls in love with her teacher. They become a couple and when she becomes pregnant the dark sides of her personality begin to appear.

_Århus by night (1989)_ is a meta-film about a director from the province meeting the cynical Copenhagen crew inspired from the making of Drenge.

Skønheden og udyret (1983) ("Beauty and the Beast") told the tale of a father's protectiveness of his teenage daughter with only the sligtest incestous undercurrents.

Malmros married school teacher Marianne Tromholt on 5 June 1982. Tromholt suffers from bipolar disorder. In 1984, while on a home visit from Risskov Psychiatric Hospital and off her medication, Tromholt killed the couple's 9-month-old daughter with a kitchen knife. Tromholt received 18 months of hospital treatment after which Malmros obtained her release. Tromholt returned to teaching at the request of her students' parents. She retired from teaching in 2012, prior to the release of Malmros' 2013 film Sorrow and Joy which recounts the tragic events.

Kundskabens træ (1981) delved into the group dynamics and the first love experiences of teenagers in an Aarhus public school and is widely praised as a masterpiece and his finest work.

Drenge (1977) ("Boys") was a description of the evolvement of male sexuality from the early pre-puberty experimentations to the grown man's sexual ventures.

His career got going with the largely selffinanced Lars Ole, 5c (1973) which, like his next films, was based on his own childhood experiences in Aarhus. His flair for depicting the pains and bittersweet troubles of early adolescence raised him to the status of a leading director in Denmark.

In 1969, Malmros sought financial support from the Danish Film Fund, first for script development of Lars-Ole, 5c, and again later for production. Both times he was turned down—the Film Fund would not support what they considered a children's movie. Malmros again self-funded his project. The movie revolved around the social life and development of a fifth-grade schoolboy. Malmros filmed on location at the Finsensgades Skole in Århus where he once attended, and he reduced costs by using children from the school as actors and extras." In 1971, he appealed for support to transfer the film from 16-mm to 35-mm and was again refused. The film premiered in 1973 to critical praise and was hailed as "a little film miracle." Malmros' treatment by the Danish Film Fund became a scandal and was discussed within the Danish parliament. Subsequently, the Film Fund was dissolved and replaced by the Danish Film Institute which awarded Malmros 335,000 dkk in settlement in 1974. In August of that year, Malmros won the Bodil Award for Best Danish Film for Lars-Ole, 5c.

One of the most important Danish directors of the last three decades and one of Danish cinema's few acknowledged auteurs, Malmros took his inspiration from the french new wave and Truffaut in particular. He started as a self taught director and debuted with En mærkelig kærlighed (1968) which is an amateur film that has not been in distribution since its premiere.

Nils Malmros (born 1944), a Danish film director and screenwriter, is considered a leading auteur of realism in Danish cinema. Malmros is noted for his detailed focus on the common growing pains of adolescence and the loss of innocence, which he draws from his childhood experiences growing up in Århus, Denmark. His most notable films form a trilogy about schoolchildren in 1950s Århus: Lars-Ole 5c, Boys and Tree of Knowledge. The latter film, 1981's Tree of Knowledge (Kundskabens træ), is one of ten films listed in Denmark's cultural canon by the Danish Ministry of Culture.