Norsk filminstitutt

Norwegian director Christian Lo’s third feature, Los Bando, which will be domestically released on 16 February by KontxtFilm, will have its international premiere in the Generation Kplus programme at the Berlin International Film Festival 15-25 February.

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Los Bando producer Trine Aadalen Lo and director (and husband) Christian Lo. Photo: Kristoffer Fagernes
Norwegian director Christian Lo’s Los Bando does not start as an immediate success story: Best friends Grim and Axel’s rock group Los Bando Immortale has been invited to participate in the Norwegian Championship in rock at Tromsø, but they lack a bass player, Axel (vocalist, lead guitarist) cannot sing, and they have no driver.

Quick fix: bass player on cello 

They have dreamt of attending this event since they were eight, so they need a quick solution. Nine-year-old Thilda becomes their bass player (on a cello); local rally talent Martin is assigned as driver, but it later appears that he has no driving license. Still they embark on a crazy journey across Norway, chased by police and parents.

Norwegian-Swedish coproduction

Produced by Nicholas Sando and Trine Aadalen Lo for Filmbin, which they own with director Lo and writer-editor Arild Tryggestad – and in coproduction with Norway’s Original Film and Sweden’s Snowcloud - Lo’s third feature stars Jonas Hoff Oftebro, Tage Hogness, Jacob Dyrud, Tiril Marie Høistad Berger and Nils Ole Oftebro.

The metalhead director: rock is not dead 

Los Bando is a rock roadmovie – what is your relationship to music?

Christian Lo: “I am a rock’n’roll fan, my favorite groups were first AC/DC, Metallica and Iron Maiden. Before there was punk and grunge, and bands like Bad Religion, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Tool and Motorpsycho. I'm still swearing to rock like, the Norwegian group Kvelertak. My music interest has been crucial both for becoming a film director and for making Los Bando. Today there are many good Norwegian rock bands, and I have also wanted in the film to promote Norwegian rock and make it visible to the younger generation. Some claim that rock is dead, but I hope the movie will prove that it is not.”

Participated in the national championship in rock

Trine Aadalen Lo: “What Christian is not telling here is that when he was 13 he started playing bass guitar in the local rock band Oljesøl (oil spill) at Vinstra in Gudbrandsdalen. The four friends competed in local championships and the national, then called LO Rock. Now adults, married with a total of 10 children, they still play together when they rarely meet.”

Wanted both a roadmovie and a film about a music group 

How did the idea for Los Bando come up?

CL: “At a idea workshop in 2014, scriptwriter Tryggestad dreamed of making roadmovie, and I wanted to make a film about a music group, so Arild wrote the amazing script for the road comedy about the band Los Bando Immortale. My film should be about solidarity and how to follow a dream. Once my youth band participated in the Norwegian rock finals at Rockefeller in Oslo which was huge for me - this "greater than life" feeling from such moments are so important, when you are young, and I wanted to create this in the film's universe. The film is about following a dream, life is too short not to, telling the story of four eccentric, young characters who individually experience the crisis of their lives, and against all odds embark on an adventurous journey to fulfill their dreams. I wanted to explore the dynamics between the four strong  people in a movie that would both make you laugh and get touched. A movie that is not just a journey to the Norwegian Championship in rock, but an upswing where the main characters tie strong ties, get a sense of security and together find out what their problems are about.”

TAaL: “We were all enthusiastic about the first draft. Sando and I read on our own, and when we met we both said, “Isn’t this story so well written that we simply start to find funding?” And we did.

Met coproducers at Cinekid 2016 

Was it a difficult production to stage?

CL: “It was quite frustrating to realise how difficult it was to find financing for Norwegian features, but luckily my two producers – Aadalen Lo and Sando – never give up, and we had a small, but strong team behind the production. With regional and international funding, but with a refusal of production support from the Norwegian Film Institute, the budget had to be reduced. Original Film’s Mona Steffesen was with us from the start, Sweden’s Petter Lindblad, of Snowcloud Films, joined us at Cinekid 2016 and got us one of Swedish cast and crew members.

 TAaL: “The film institute’s development department was backing the project from the start, so with Creative Europe and Filminvest support we were able to shoot a pilot for the project, which became a powerful instrument when we pitched it at various co-production forums in 2016. Germany’s NDR TV pre-purchased the movie, and we secured us one of the world's best international sales agents, Germany’s Sola Media, long before we started filming.

Found the cast through a short film

Where did you shoot it – how did you cast it?

CL: “The film is shot in the Lillehammer region, in and around Tromsø, and at FilmCamp in Målselv. On my way home we filled the Los Bando van with equipment, drove 2,000 km in 3 days and filmed the return to Lillehammer and the Storyline Post-Production Studios in Oslo. The best friends in the group, Grim, Axel - Tage Hogness, Jakob Dyrud – we discovered when we made a short with them in 2016. And Thilda (Tiril Marie Høistad Berger) made a strong impression at an audition at Lillehammer.

Top of Form

Have you already decided what will be your next project?

CL: “Lately I have probably been a bit too much in the Los Bando bubble, but I will continue to make challenging, engaging and touching films for young audiences, and I have been looking at several scripts – ao Arild has written a new exciting project called The Charlatan.”

TAaL: “At Amsterdam’s Cinekid 2014, my producer colleague Sando and I became acquainted with two ladies from the Croatian production company Studio Dim, pitching a children's film project for us called My Grandpa Is An Alien. Filmbin secured the Norwegian film share, and we have entered as one of the seven countries co-producing the film. This summer, Filmbin – with composer Stein Berge Svendsen, sound deigner Tormod Ringnes and The LIPP company - will conclude the post-production in Lillehammer. We recommended Norwegian actor Nils Ole Oftebro (the father of his son  Jonas Hoff in Los Bando) for the film, and he is now playing one of the leads. International coproductions is a new business area for Filmbin, and we are talking future projects with some of the colleagues I met when I was Norway’s representative at the 2017 EAVE Producers’ Workshop. 

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The Lo couple

Now married, Christian Lo and Trine Aadalen (then) Jensen started their relationship at the Danvik Folk Highschool, where he was studying fiction films, she reporting; here they also met (now writer-editor) Arild Tryggested, their partner in Filmbin, and (now cinematographer) Bjørn Ståle Bratberg, who has shot their features.

They both left to study at UK’s Surrey Institute of Art and Design (now University for the Creative Arts), he directing, she scriptwriting, photography and documentaries – “never producing, it sounded so boring,” she recalled. He asked her to produce his graduation movie which she did – and liked it.

During their third year in the UK they both took the course of “Running a small business”, and returning to Oslo in 2001 they had various free-lance jobs, before in 2004 they moved to Lillehammer, where Tryggestad had finished his education as an editor at the Norwegian Film School.“

“And now, after 14 years, we can look back at numerous award-winning shorts and three features together – this is what we dreamt of,” she concluded. Lo’s feature debut, Rafiki (2009) was his first selection for the Berlinale’s Generation Kplus, besides taking prizes in Montreal and Castellinaria. 

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Coproducer Mona Steffensen

Norwegian producer Mona Steffensen, of Tromsø’s Original Film, have worked with Filmbin for several years – Tryggestad edited the company’s TV series Heartbeat (2013) and Norwegian director Torfinn Iversen’s feature Oskar’s America, which was selected for the Berlinale’s Generation Kplus last year.

 “With Los Bando we got even closer, since we have coproduced the film with regional funds Filmfond Nord and FilmCamp,” said Steffensen. “We both think it is important and inspiring to create quality movies for children and young people.”

At the Berlin festival Steffensen will also launch Norwegian director Carl Christian Lein Størmer’s first feature-length documentary, There Is Always Next Season, reviving Team Scheffler, a group of snowboarders from the arctic city of Tromsø, and a tale of friendship, hardship and faded dreams, but one last chance to make things right.