Ine Marie Wilmann will be Berlinale Shooting Star
The lead actress in Sonja – The White Swan will represent Norway in the European Film Promotion programme at the Berlin International Film Festival between 7-17 February, 2019.
Norwegian actress Ine Marie Wilmann, who plays the lead in Norwegian director Anne Sewitsky’s Sonja Henie biopic Sonja – The White Swan (Sonja), is among the 10 European best up-and-coming acting talents, who have been selected for the Shooting Star programme at the Berlin International Film Festival between 7-17 February, 2019.
Introduction to the international film scene
Organised for the 22nd year by the European Film Promotion, the three-day schedule (8-11 February) will introduce the participants to the international film scene and give them the opportunity to meet casting directors, producers and filmmakers in one-on-one meetings, creating their own personal contacts and networks.
"Ine Marie Wilmann blew the jury away with the physicality of her performance as iconic ice-skater Sonja Henie in Anne Sewitsky's Sonja: The White Swan, where she skillfully combines (inner) strength, subtlety and profundity. Wilmann is a magnetic leading lady," said the international jury who selected her.
”What a day – it is a pleasure to be chosen, really a great honour,” exclaimed Wilman, who will be on stage at the Berlinale Palast on 11 February to receive the European Shooting Star Award. Wilmann also had her cinema break-through in a Anne Sewitsky film, Homesick (De nærmeste/2015), which won her an Amanda – Norway’s national film prize – for Best Actress.
A frequent performer
The 33-year-old actress, who has also been awarded the Norwegian TV Industry’s Golden Screen for her performance in the TV2 thriller series The Third Eye (Det tredje øyet/2014-2016), was educated at the Norwegian National Academy of Theatre and has since 2011 been a frequent performer in theatre, TV and film.
Former Norwegian Shooting Stars include Eili Harboe, Jakob Oftebro, Anders Baasmo Christiansen, Nicolai Cleve Broch, Ane Dahl Torp, Trond Espen Seim, Aksel Hennie, Maria Bonnevie, Kristoffer Joner, Gørild Mauseth og Anneke von der Lippe.
At the 2019 Berlinale Norway will also be in the spotlight as the Country in Focus in the European Film Market, providing a comprehensive look at Norwegian filmmakers and producers, offering a host of possibilities for networking with the Norwegian film industry.
About Sonja - The White Swan
Wilman’s new film,Sonja – The White Swan, will be domestically launched on 25 December prior to its international premiere in in the Premieres section of the American Sundance Film Festival, which takes place in Park City (and Salt Lake City, Ogden, the Sundance Ski Resort) in the state of Utah between 24 January-3 February, 2019.
Scripted by Mette M Bølstad, Andreas Markusson, and directed by Sewitsky, it is the true story of one of the world’s greatest athletes – the inventor of modern figure skating – who was a ten-time world, six-time European and three-time Olympic champion, before in 1936 she decided to to go to Hollywood and change her sports career to become a movie star.
One of the richest women of her time
She took the film world by storm – her first feature, US director Sidney Lanfield’s One in a Million, was nominated for an Oscar and broke box-office records by selling the most tickets in the world in 1937. Henie became one of the richest women of her time, always surrounded by fans, lovers and family – never alone.
She sacrificed everything to stay in the spotlight, and she refused to retire, although her popularity plummeted, and the contracts from the film companies failed, but she was eventually forced by a serious drinking problem. She moved back to Norway with her third husband and died there of leukemia in 1969, aged 57. - Synnøve Hørsdal and Cornelia Boysen produced for Oslo’s Maipo Film.