04/09/2014 - Shortly to be world-premiered at Toronto, Bent Hamer’s new feature 1001 Grams is Norway’s candidate for the Oscar nomination

The international prototype of the kilogram from 1879 – the mother of all kilos, the last physical weight reference still in use – is kept in a vault at the BIPM (Bureau International des Poids et Mesures) in Paris.

In Norwegian director Bent Hamer’s new feature, 1001 Grams [+see also:
trailer
interview: Bent Hamer
film profile] – which the Norwegian Oscar Committee yesterday (3 September) decided to submit for an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign-Language Film – Ane Dahl Torp stars as a recently divorced, work-obsessed scientist in her late 30s, who goes to a seminar in Paris about the actual weight of the kilogram.

She falls in love with a French colleague, and now her own burden of disappointment, grief and – not least – love will end up on the scales in Hamer’s film, which he also wrote and produced for his own BulBul Film, with France’s Slot Machine and Germany’s Pandora Filmproduktion. The rest of the cast includes Stein Winge, Per Christian Ellefsen, Laurent Stocker and Hildegun Riise.

“1001 Grams stands out with a clear international profile – in Hamer’s unique way, it depicts sorrow, love, and the small and big challenges of life,” said the chairman of the Norwegian Oscar Committee, Sindre Guldvog, who is also managing director of the Norwegian Film Institute. “It is a compelling addition to Hamer’s impressive filmography that has previously represented Norway internationally.” 

Hamer, who has twice before represented Norway in the Oscar race (Kitchen Stories in 2003 and O’Horten [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] in 2007), has not yet shown the film to local audiences; it will have its world premiere in the Masters sidebar at the Toronto International Film Festival (4-14 September) and will open Norway’s Bergen International Film Festival on 23 September, ahead of its domestic release on 26 September through Norsk Filmdistribusjon. Paris-based Les Films du Losange handles international sales.