10/02/2010

The Norwegian Film Institute (NFI) has invested a total of NOK 55.1m (€6.7m) in five new features, including the latest projects by Pål Sletaune (Junk Mail), Jens Lien (The Bothersome Man [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jens Lien
interview: Jørgen Storm Rosenberg
film profile]) and Stian Kristiansen (The Man Who Loved Yngve [+see also:
trailer
film profile]).

Sletaune has hired the hottest Swedish actress currently, Noomi Rapace (Millennium’s Lisbeth Salander), for his new thriller Babycall. Rapace plays over-protective single mum Anna who moves to a secret address with her eight year-old son Anders. She buys a baby call monitor to protect Anders from his violent father. The monitor can also register noises from other flats in her building. One day, Anna thinks she has heard someone harming a child. The NOK25m (€3.06m) film is produced by 4½ Production.

On March 1, Lien will start filming the black comedy Teory & Praksis (“Theory & Practice”) based on Nikolaj Frobenius’s eponymous semi-biographical novel. Set in the 1970s, the film tells of an unusual father and son relationship and what happens when one is forced to look at the future in a totally different light. The NOK26m (€3.18m) film is produced by Friland Film.

Kristiansen is working on Jeg Reiser Alene (“I Travel Alone”), the sequel to his successful feature debut The Man Who Loved Yngve. He has re-teamed with producer Yngve Sæther (Motlys), scriptwriter Tore Renberg and actor Rolf Kristian Larsen, who plays Jarle Klepp, a 25 year-old literature student passionate about Adorno, Proust and mature women. The day he discovers he has a child he has to face responsibilities. The NOK18m (€2.2m) project will start shooting on June 14.

Two other feature film projects were backed by the NFI: the coming-of-age story Få Meg På, For Fae by first-timer Jannicke Systad Jacobsen is produced by Motlys, and the children’s film Jørgen + Anne = Sant will be directed by Anne Sewitsky for Cinenord Kidstory.