12/10/2005

Love Me Tomorrow [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Elsk meg i morgen), the reunion of filmmaker Peter Næss with the touching character of Elling, has again conquered the hearts of Norwegian audiences with 200,000 admissions after only two weeks release through UIP.

Elling [+see also:
trailer
film profile]The first of the series based on Ingvar Ambjørsen’s novels and also directed by Næss, successfully introduced in 2001 Norwegian and world audiences to the character played by Per Christian Ellefsen, a poetic and inhibited soul who is required by the welfare authorities to share his flat with Kjell Bjarne (Sven Nordin). The film produced by Maipo Film became a huge local hit, selling as much as 800,000 tickets in Norway and securing an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign language film. Then followed Mother’s Elling in 2003, a prequel to the first film directed this time by Eva Isaksen. The film focused on Elling’s relationship with his mother, but didn’t quite reach the same box office peak.

In this third –and final-instalment– produced again by Maipo Film & TV with an NOK 18m (€ 2.3m) budget, Elling lives in his own flat, and his friend Kjell Bjarne in the same building but one floor up where he has moved in with his girlfriend Reidun and her daughter. Elling feels like an outsider, until he himself finds true love in Lone (Marian Saastad Ottesen) who works in a hot dog stand.
The original successful recipe seems to be working again as Love Me Tomorrow was very warmly welcomed by the local press and the admission figures so far are as good as for the first film according to producer Dag Alveberg from Maipo Film & TV. International sales are handled by Trust Film Sales.

Alveberg told Cineuropa he has two or three other projects lined-up with Peter Næss as well two feature films in production and post-production: the romantic comedy Maria’s Men by first time director Vibeke Ringen will start shooting within the next two weeks with theatre actress Ingjerd Egeberg in the lead, and the children’s film Svein And The Rat directed by Magnus Martens and based on the famous children’s books by Marit Nicolaysen, is getting ready for its February 2006 release.