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OSCARS 2015 Norway

Norway shortlists three films for the Oscar nomination

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- The Norwegian Oscar Committee’s final choice for this year’s submission will be Eskil Vogt’s Blind, Bent Hamer’s 1001 Grams or Hisham Zaman’s Letter to the King

Norway shortlists three films for the Oscar nomination
Blind by Eskil Vogt

Norwegian director Eskil Vogt’s Blind [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Eskil Vogt
interview: Eskil Vogt
film profile
]
, which earlier this month (16 August) was awarded at the Amandas – Norway’s national film prize – at the Norwegian International Film Festival in Haugesund, could also add an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Feature to its list of achievements. 

Vogt’s feature debut was yesterday shortlisted by the Norwegian Oscar Committee for this year’s submission, together with Bent Hamer’s 1001 Grams [+see also:
trailer
interview: Bent Hamer
film profile
]
and Hisham Zaman’s Letter to the King [+see also:
trailer
interview: Hisham Zaman
film profile
]
. The final candidate will be decided on 3 September.

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Also collecting the World Cinema Screenwriting Award at Sundance and the Europa Cinemas Label at Berlin, Blind portrays Ingrid, who has recently lost her sight; she retreats to the safety of her apartment, where she feels in control, alone with her husband and her thoughts. Starring Ellen Dorrit Petersen, it was produced by Hans-Jørgen Osnes and Sigve Endresen for Motlys.

Hamar’s 1001 Grams follows a recently divorced, work-obsessed female scientist in her late 30s (Ane Dahl Torp) who goes to a seminar in Paris about the actual weight of the kilogram, where she falls in love with a French colleague. Also produced by Hamar for his own BulBul Film, it will be world-premiered at Toronto (4-14 September) and will open the festival in Bergen on 26 September.

In Zaman’s Letter to the King, five immigrants have been permitted to leave the refugee camp in Norway’s snowy no man’s land and travel to Oslo. Their experiences of happiness, humiliation, love and revenge are described in a letter, written by 80-year-old Mirza to the King of Norway. Produced by Alan Milligan and Zaman for Film Farms, the movie won the Dragon Award and €100,000 at this year’s Göteborg International Film Festival. 

Norwegian films have been nominated for the Best Foreign Language Feature Oscar five times, most recently two years ago with Espen Sandberg and Joachim Rønning’s Kon-Tiki [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, which took almost 900,000 admissions domestically and was sold to more than 90 territories. After 1 October, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will come up with its own shortlist of nine films; the five nominations will be announced on 15 January, and the Oscar awards ceremony will take place on 22 February.

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