Two Norwegian features selected for the 61st Berlinale
The Mountain (Ole Giæver)
Norwegian director Ole Giæver’s feature debut, The Mountain (Fjellet), will have its international premiere in the Panorama section of the 61st Berlin International Film Festival (10-20 February), shortly after it has opened the festival in Giæver’s home city of Tromsø, on 18 January.
Educated at the Nordland Art and Film School in Lofoten and Stockholm’s Konstfack, Giæver decided to produce a film on his own, in lack of official support for his projects. He wrote The Mountain for Ellen Dorrit Petersen and Marte Magnusdotter Solem, the story of two women on a trip through the fjells where two years before they were exposed to a traumatic experience.
Norwegian producer Karin Julsrud, of 4½ Fiksion, was invited to watch the editing of the film, and she joined the production with Norwegian distributor Kjetil Omberg, of Euforia Film, which will release it domestically on 25 February.
Giæver’s short, Tommy, was nominated for the European Film Awards in 2007, and his screenplay for Summer Past (Sommerhuset) was considered for an Amanda, Norway’s national film prize, in 2008. – Berlin’s Panorama has previously screened the debut films of such Norwegian directors Rune Denstad Langlo (North/Nord), Jens Lien (Jonny Vang) and Erik Poppe (Schpaaa).
Norwegian director Arild Andresen’s first feature, The Liverpool Goalie (Keeper’n til Liverpool), will also have its international premiere at the Berlinale, competing in the Generation section for young audiences. In Norway it has since 22 October sold 84.000 tickets for Euforia Film.
Scripted by Lars Hudmestad from a book by Lars Mæhle, and produced by Håkon Øverås and Karin Julsrud for 4½ Fiksion, the coming-of-age comedy follows girls and boys who both play football, worship their idols, and are frustrated by complicated friendships, young love, anxious mothers and overambitious football coaches. Asle van der Hagen, Sussanne Boucher, Andrine Sæther and Fridtjov Såheim play the leads.
Source: Norwegian Film Institute
