Peter Elfelt (1 January 1866 – 18 February 1931) was a Danish photographer and film director known as the first movie pioneer in Denmark when he began making documentary films in 1897.

[2] During a trip to Paris in 1896, Elfelt obtained a set of detailed Cinematographe plans from the French inventor Jules Carpentier.

[3] During the following 15 years, he made short nature films and newsreels about the Danish royal family.

Based upon the actual execution of a French woman who murdered her two children, it starred the singer Francesca Nathansen and was filmed in the arcade of the Christiansborg Castle.

Although Elfelt was Denmark's first pioneer of filmmaking, he considered film as secondary to his work as a photographer.