18/07/2011

Australian actress Emilie de Ravin (photo), who shot to fame during six seasons of the American award-winning television series Lost, will play the lead in Finnish director Samuli Valkama’s feature debut, Love and Other Troubles, which will shoot on locations in Finland later this month.

Now living in the US, de Ravin – who also played the leads in Brick, The Hills Have Eyes and Remember Me [+see also:
trailer
film profile] – will star with Finnish actors Jussi Nikkila and Ville Virtanen (of Swedish actress-director Pernilla August’s Svinalängorna (Beyond) [+see also:
trailer
film profile]). The Bronson Club feature is produced by Jesse Fryckman, with Andrew D Corkin, of Liquid Lunch.

Valkama, whose short Alright Love (2004) won a prize in Berlin, wrote the script with Katri Manninen about a 25-year-old former child star now living in a small town, giving guitar lessons. Then his father, a washed-up rock’n’roll bohemian, turns up – he needs a place to stay for a few nights.

It doesn’t get any better when Dad comes home with a girl his own age, a funny American student who teaches line dancing at the local activity centre – and he is attracted to her, too. The triangle romcom will be released domestically next spring in Scandinavia by Nordisk Film Production AB.

Helsinki-based, and part of Finnish leading production company, Solar Films Inc. Oy, Bronson Club was set up as ”a home to the best of the next generation filmmakers.” Last year it realised Joonas Neuvonen’s Reindeerspotting, about drug addicts in Lapland, which won the Swiss Critics’ Week in Locarno.

Besides Love and Other Troubles, Bronson Club – which has this year launched Oskari Sipola’s first feature, August, is in production with The Fanatics, also a feature debut by Teppo Airaksinen, who wrote the script with Jaakko Kaján. It follows a fanatic football fan who falls in love with the perfect girl – who supports the wrong team.