The Orange Girl (Appelsinpiken)

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The Orange Girl
Original title	Appelsinpiken
Type	Features
Genre	Drama
Director	Eva Dahr
Short summary	Georg lives with his mother Veronika in Oslo. On his eighteenth birthday, he receives a thick letter from his father, Jan Olav, which his father wrote just before he died, when Georg was only six years old. On the same day, Georg is going to the mountains, equipped with skis and telescope, in order to photograph a rare celestial phenomenon. He is ambivalent concerning his father's lether, and has repressed his memories of him. Still, he brings the letter with him. On the train to the mountains, he meets Stella, of the same age as him. In the letter, his father asks Georg a fundamental existential question: What's the point of living when we're going to die anyway, maybe even when life is at its best? Would you want to be born if you had a choice? But before Georg is allowed to answer, his father wants to tell him a story about the Orange Girl he met in 1982.
Summary	It could have been a perfectly normal day, if he had missed that streetcar... But Jan Olav just catches that streetcar, on a cold autumn day in Oslo. And on that exact streetcar, on that exact day, there she is. A beautiful girl in a red coat, holding a large bag of oranges in her arms. She smiles, and as their eyes meet she drops the bag and the oranges roll all over the streetcar. She gets off at the next stop, but Jan Olav cannot forget her. Who is she, what if he never sees her again? The quest for the girl with the oranges leads him through winter-cold Oslo and all the way to colourful Seville, where the air is warm and the trees are full of oranges. Twenty years later Georg receives a letter from his father, Jan Olav, about a mysterious girl he calls the Orange Girl. But what can a father who is no longer alive have to tell his 16-year-old son? Georg starts reading the letter on his way to ski in the Norwegian mountains. On this ski trip he meets Stella. Through his father’s letter and a magical encounter under the starry Easter sky, Georg realizes that he and his father have something in common – the dream of true love. Does Georg dare take the chance?
Cast	Mikkel Bratt Silset (Georg), Harald Thompson Rosenstrøm (Jan Olav), Annie Nygaard (The Orange Girl), Emilie K. Beck (Stella), Rebekka Karijord (Veronika)
Screenplay	Andreas Markusson, Axel Helgeland
Based on	Jostein Gaarder's novel "Appelsinpiken"
D.O.P	Harald G. Paalgaard
Editor	Perry Eriksen
Sound	Håkon Garpestad
Costume designer	Gro Gillesen
Scenography	Angelica Böhm
Producer	Axel Helgeland
Line producer	Kaare Storemyr
Production company	Helgeland Films AS \| Ø. Storgt. 59 \| N-3018 Drammen axelhelg@online.no \| www.helgeland-film.no
Co-producer	Helmut Weber \| Thomas Springer \| Alvaro Alonso \| Frida Ohrvik
Country of origin	Norway
Release date (national)	2009-02-27
Technical information
Format	35mm
Screen ratio	1:2,35
Colour	Colour
Sound System	Dolby SRD
Length in min's	81
Length in meters	2193
No. of reels	5
International sales	Beta Cinema \| Grünwalder Weg 28D \| DE-82041 Oberhaching Tel: +49 89 67 34 69 80 \| Fax: +49 89 67 34 69 888 Mail: beta@betafilm.com \| www.betafilm.com
Distributor (Norway only)	Sandrew Metronome Norge

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Director biography:
Eva Dahr (1958) has received many awards for her short films. Dahr made her debut as a feature film director in 1985 with Burning Flowers, which she co-directed with Eva Isaksen. In addition she has been commissioning editor in the Norwegian Film Institute between 1998 and 2002. Eva has a unique eye as film-maker, and she has a special warmth and suppleness in her films. Her second feature, Mars and Venus (2007), was co-written with Andreas Markusson.