“One time in Copenhagen there were celebrations of the 50th anniversary of hot-dog stands, thanks to which I read something about their history, which stretches back to Jesus. When I found out that the church tried to ban them, this seemed to me like a good engine of a comedy about the fact that even 2,000 years later we’re still dealing with the same stuff,” the filmmaker said at a post-screening Q&A about the origins of his second directorial work. He originally wanted to shoot the film in Israel. “But then Trump came along, so I moved it to the US,” he said.
So far American viewers have only seen his satire about the search for identity and fear of losing it at the festival in Santa Barbara. “And they were pretty offended. But at the same time they laughed a lot. They immediately invited us to other American festivals, though they didn’t go ahead because of Covid,” Thomsen said. He also pointed out that many scenes in Gutterbee are based on reality. “If you want to make fun of another country as a foreigner, you’d better have your facts right.”