An Enemy of the People (En folkefiende)

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An Enemy of the People
Original title	En folkefiende
Type	Features
Genre	Drama
Director	Erik Skjoldbjærg
Short summary	An Enemy of the People is a modern version of Henrik Ibsen’s stage play with the same title. Moving Ibsen’s story to our days means the characters have different jobs and the location where most of the narrative evolves is changed, however, the basic plot remains the same. Television celebrity Tomas Stockman goes back to the village where he grew up to produce the world's purest bottled water in partnership with his brother, Peter. The bottling plant will bring new life to the village and new hope to its inhabitants, but tests soon reveal traces of a banned pesticide in the water. Tomas wants to tell the truth, but Peter is afraid the business could face bankruptcy. Then Tomas learns that, years before, his father-in-law had buried drums of toxic chemicals somewhere on the farm...
Summary	From the world's most widely read and most often performed playwright comes one of the greatest stories of our age. An Enemy of the People is a modern film version of Henrik Ibsen's classic play - the action has been transposed to the present day and to a local community on the west coast of Norway and the conflict updated. Ibsen's spa has turned into a mineral water bottling plant, while the protagonist, Tomas Stockmann, has become a nutritional physiologist and television personality. However, it turns out the water is not of the promised quality, and the problems and conflicts are accumulating. For this film project, some of our foremost film capacities are collaborating to create a contemporary Ibsen story, with the drama of the original story intact, but also modernized and in accordance with cinematic premises. An Enemy of the People is a landscape movie in every sense of the word, shot in a small village on the west coast of Norway. A landscape both lush and dramatic consisting of steep mountains covered with snowfields, above rich fruit plantations and clear blue fjords.
Cast	Jørgen Langhelle, Trine Wiggen, Sven Nordin, Pia Tjelta, Jon Øigarden, Per Jansen, Kasper Sveen
Screenplay	Nikolaj Frobenius and Erik Skjoldbjærg
Based on	Henrik Ibsen’s stage play with the same title
D.O.P	Harald Paalgard
Composer	Jan Garbarek
Producer	Aage Aaberge and Kaare Storemyr
Production company	Nordisk Film Production AS P.O.Box 5800 Majorstua, N-0308 Oslo Tel: +47 24 14 92 20 Mail: aage.aaberge@nordiskfilm.com
Co-producer	Kim Magnusson for Nordisk Film Production, Denmark and Edward A. Dreyer for NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation)
Country of origin	Norway
Release date (national)	2005-01-21
Release date (international)	2005-01-19
Technical information
Format	35mm
Screen ratio	1:1,85
Colour	Colour
Length in min's	90
Length in meters	2481
International sales	Nordisk Film International Sales Mosedalvej 14, DK-2500 Valby Tel: +47 3618 8200 e-mail: contact@nordiskfilm.com
Distributor (Norway only)	Columbia TriStar Nordisk Film Distributors AS
Festival participation	2005 Tromsø International Film Festival 2005 World Film Festival, Montreal 2005 Reykjavik International Film Festival 2005 Nordische Filmtage Lübeck 2005 Denver International Film Festival 2005 A Luminous Century: Celebrating Norwegian Cinema, Lincoln Centre, NY 2005 Stockholm International Film Festival 2005 Black Night Film Festival, Tallinn, Estonia 2005 Barbican Centre, London 2006 Dhaka International Film Festival 2006 Scandinavian Film Festival, Los Angeles 2006 Cinequest Film Festival 2006 Museum Of Modern Arts, New York 2006 Nordick Film Festival, Rouen 2006 Puerto Rico Film & Literature Festival 2006 Cleveland Film Festival 2006 Minneapolis Film Festival 2006 Skandinavische Filmtage Bonn 2006 La Rochelle Film Festival, France 2006 Scandinavia House, New York, USA 2006 Nordic Film Days, Lübeck, Germany 2006 Nordic Film Forum Scanorama, Vilnius, Lithuania 2006 Norwegian Film Week, Germany 2007 Norwegian Film Week, Copenhagen, Denmark 2007 Duke University, USA 2007 Nordic Film Week, Singapore
URL	http://www.nfi.no/film/anenemyofthepeople

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Director biography:
Erik Skjoldbjærg (b. 1964) trained at the prestigious National Film and Television School in London. His film debut Instomnia (1997) attracted substantial international attention and was well received at the Cannes Film Festival. Prozac Nation (2001) was Skjoldbjærg's international debut and confirmed his status as one of Norway's most exciting film directors.