News

Mohamed Jabaly was awarded Best Director in the International Competition for his film Life is Beautiful at IDFA, the world’s largest documentary film festival.  The award ceremony took place in Amsterdam on November 16th, 2023.

For the first time, an animated feature has been granted support for an Academy award campaign by the Norwegian Film Institute (NFI). From 2023, NFI has included animated features in their campaign support scheme, and Kajsa Næss’ award-winning feature debut Titina is the first film to be able to use this opportunity.

Hans Petter Moland shoots Knut Hamsun`s Nobel prize winning novel Growth of the Soil.
The racist killing of 15-year old Benjamin Hermansen is to be adapted to fiction film by Ingvild Søderlind. The award-winning tweens-film Dancing Queen by Aurora Gossé gets a sequel, this time in Hollywood. These three projects have been granted a total of 38.700.000 NOK (Euro 3,3 million) in production funding from the Norwegian Film Institute.

The documentary Al Haya Helwa - Life is Beautiful, has been invited to the competition program at IDFA, the world's largest documentary film festival. Al Haya Helwa is a personal story by director Mohamed Jabaly from Gaza who, after the closure of Gaza, involuntarily remains in Norway. The Norwegian documentaries Hiding Saddam Hussein by Halkawt Mustafa and Songs of Earth by Margreth Olin will also be screened at the Dutch documentary film festival.

Sørfond has this week granted 4.975.000 NOK (€ 430 000) in support for nine international co-productions with Norwegian minority producers. This year the Sørfond funding goes to projects from Sudan, Egypt, Georgia, Philippines, Bangladesh, Guatemala, Nepal, Turkey and Yemen. 

For the first time, the Norwegian Oscar Committee has selected a documentary film - Songs of Earth - as Norway's submission for the Best International Feature Film Academy Award. 

Oscar 2023: The Norwegian Oscar committee presents the shortlist for Norway’s submission to the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. Selected for the shortlist are Hisham Zaman’s drama A Happy Day, Ole Giæver’s drama Let the River Flow, and Margreth Olin’s documentary Songs of Earth.

Songs of Earth, a full-length documentary by Margreth Olin about nature, experienced with the guidance of director Margreth Olin's 85-year-old father through Oldedalen in Northwest Norway, will be shown in the documentary sidebar in Toronto.  

New feature films from Joachim Trier, Itonje Søimer Guttormsen and Ida Sagmo Tvedte today received production support grants from the Norwegian Film Institute (NFI).  

The feature length documentary Liv Ullmann - A Road Less Travelled, by director Dheeraj Akolkar, tells the story of Liv Ullmann, the people she encountered, and the choices she made. The Cannes festival audience will be the first to experience this story.