The Quake team ready with new feature project
Director John Andreas Andersen, writer Harald Rosenløw Eeg and producer Martin Sundland are preparing a €7.5 million “major spectacular drama”. Also receiving funding is the feature film The Tunnel by Pål Øie. The Film Institute in addition supported a documentary project called The Quest for Tonewood.
Norwegian director John Andreas Andersen, whose feature debut The Quake is currently No 1 on the local charts having sold 425,890 tickets since its 31 August premiere, will reunite with writer Harald Rosenløw Eeg and producer Martin Sundland for his next film, “Project X” (“Prosjekt X”).
The Norwegian Film Institute will chip in €1.5 million (NOK 15 milion) for the film, which Eeg will script with Lars Gudmestad, and Sundland produce with Catrin Gundersen, for Fantefilm Fiksjon. According to the institute the producers do not want to disclose details from the plot, but they promise “a major spectacular drama” on a €7.4 million (NOK 72 million) budget.
The Quake, a disaster movie where the Norwegian capital of Oslo is destroyed by an earthquake, reached 154,109 admissions during its opening weekend, the second-best of all time (after Kon-Tiki‘s 164,804 in 2012). In 1904 an earthquake (5.4 on the Richter scale) hit Oslo and the surrounding areas.
The Tunnel (Tunnelen), by Norwegian director Pål Øie, otherwise well-known for his horror thrillers (most recently Villmark 2/2015), will receive €0.7 million (NOK 7 million) for the production by John Einar Hagen and Einar Loftessnes for Nordisk Film Production. Scripted by Kjersti Helen Rasmussen, it is set during a raging winter storm in the fjells, where a tunnel fire catches people on the way home for Christmas in a disastrous inferno.
The institute also supported two documentaries, including The Quest for Tonewood (Jakten på tonetreet), which Hans Lukas Hansen will shoot from a script by Christian Lysvåg. With €167,000 (NOK 1.6 million) backing, the Benedikte Danielsen and Øirin Høgtveit production for Norsk Fjernsyn follows a Bosnian violin maker in search of the perfect wood for his next instrument.
After his 69 Minutes of 86 Days (2017), which garnered him five international awards, Norwegian director-writer-cinematographer Egil Håskjold Larsen will portray The Last Hunter (Den siste jeger), 70-year-old Steinar, who has chosen an isolated life in harmony with nature on the northernmost top of Europe. The Racha Nia production for Yellow Log will get €68,000 (NOK 650,000).