Norsk filminstitutt

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

Joachim Trier. Photo: Kasper Tuxen

Joachim Trier's new feature film is an ambitious generational portrait revolving around an Oslo family. Through inventive storytelling techniques weaving together past and present, Trier's sixth film will be an intimate, touching, and humorous film about loneliness and family, and on the reconciling power of art.  

The screenplay is by Eskil Vogt and Joachim Trier. The producers Maria Ekerhovd and Andrea Berentsen Ottmar are co-producing through their companies Mer Film and Eye Eye Pictures. 

The NFI production support of 20.000.000 NOK is granted through the scheme Development and production of feature films for theatrical release according to artistic evaluation. 

The film has a total budget of 81.417.500 NOK.

About the filmmakers

Joachim Trier and Eskil Vogt continue their screenwriting collaboration on what will be Joachim Trier's sixth feature film as a director. The two have collaborated on all of Trier's previous feature films, and got a Best Original Screenplay Oscar nomination for The Worst Person in the World (2021).

Director and screenwriter Joachim Trier is one of Norway's most acclaimed filmmakers of all time. He has won the Nordic Council Film Prize, and he has had three feature films participating in the Cannes Film Festival, two of them in the main competition. His six movies to date have all been widely distributed internationally, and Trier has a large international fan base.

His most recent movie, The Worst Person in the World (2021), is his biggest commercial success to date. The film had its world premiere in the main program at Cannes, where lead actress Renate Reinsve won the award for Best Female Actress. The film was later nominated for two Oscars (Best Original Screenplay and Best International Film), two BAFTAs (Best Female Actress and Best International Film), and has sold over 2 million cinema tickets worldwide.

About the producers

Mer Film founder Maria Ekerhovd is one of Norway's major film producers through the last decade. Last year Ekerhovd produced the Norwegian cinema hit Krigsseileren, also featured on Netflix in an extended series versjon (War Sailor). Mer films recent drama Ellos eatnu - Let the River Live, has helped to put Sami rights on the agenda and has been seen by almost 100,000 people in Norwegian cinemas.

Maria Ekerhovd and Mer Film also produced Eskil Vogt's feature film The Innocents, which was shown in the Un Certain Regard program at Cannes 2022. Ekerhovds recent merits as co-producer include 2022 Oscar nominee Flukt.

Andrea Berentsen Ottmar was one of the producers of Joachim Trier's previous film The Worst Person in the World. Ottmar has since produced Sick Girl, which was featured in the Cannes Un Certain Regard program in 2022. Ottmar and Dyveke Bjørkly Graver last year established the production company Eye Eye Pictures, and is now co-producing Trier's next film.

Butterfly and Stargate

A total of three new Norwegian feature films receive funding through the artistic evaluation production scheme in this application round: 

Butterfly 

The film follows two sisters, each troubled in their own way, who grew up on the Gran Canaria resort island. After 27 years, they reluctantly return to their childhood island from Lillestrøm and Berlin, to deal with the death of their mother. They find themselves inheriting a half-finished esoteric retreat center in the Canary Mountains. Director and screenwriter Itonje Søimer Guttormsen (Gritt, 2021), producer is Maria Ekerhovd.

The film receives a production grant of 10.00,000 NOK and has a total budget of 40.500.000 NOK.

Stargate 

Based on best-selling novel Stargate (2021) by Norwegian author Ingvild Rishøi, set in recognizable pre-Christmas Oslo surroundings. When a father loses his job selling Christmas trees, his daughters age 10 and 16 take over. As he drowns his sorrows at the local Stargate pub, the daughters are forced to fend for themselves. A Christmas tale about a father who tries his best, but comes up short, a big sister trying to fill his shoes, and a young daughter who never loses hope.

Directed by Ida Sagmo Tvedte, screenplay by Tvedte and Rishøi, producers Hege Hauff Hvattum and Yngve Sæther for Motlys. 

Stargate receives a production grant of 13.550.000 NOK and has a total budget of 27.000.000 NOK. 

 

 

Jakob Berg-Night.jpg

Jakob Berg
Communication Adviser
+47 971 977 66
jakob.berg[@]nfi.no