Thomas, Rønning and Sandberg set sail on Kon Tiki
by Annika Pham
After Bandidas [+see also:
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film profile] and Max Manus [+see also:
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film profile], Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg are set to direct another mega project: the NOK83 million (€10.2m) biopic Kon Tiki, to be produced by Nordisk Film with Jeremy Thomas’ UK based Recorded Picture Company.
Kon Tiki will be one of the biggest projects ever produced in Norway. It centres around legendary Norwegian adventurer-ethnographer Thor Heyerdahl, who used a wooden raft (named Kon-Tiki) to make a 101-day journey from South America to the Polynesian Islands, with five fellow scientists. Heyerdahl made a documentary based on his expedition, which won an Oscar in 1951.
The Norwegian explorer had been working several years with UK production mogul Thomas on a feature film version of his adventures when he died in 2002. The producer of The Last Emperor, who owns rights to the project, has now teamed up with Norwegian filmmaking veteran Aage Aaberge, who will act as main producer on the project with Lone Korslund of Nordisk Film.
Petter Skavlan (Sophie’s World) is writing the film adaptation. The names of the cast and crew will be announced at a later date.
The English- and Norwegian-language project was just awarded NOKK 18.5m (€2.2m) in production support from the Norwegian Film Institute. Filming is scheduled to start in June.
Nordisk Film will handle Scandinavian distribution (in autumn 2011) and HanWay Films world sales.
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