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RELEASES Norway

Kon-Tiki: in the UK version, Heyerdahl speaks perfect English

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- Exceeding 800,000 tickets domestically, and selling 40 countries, Norwegian directors Norwegian directors Espen Sandberg and Joachim Rønning's Kon-Tiki will soon be ready in an international English-language version

When shooting Espen Sandberg and Joachim Rønning's Kon-Tiki [+see also:
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, about Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl and five fellow scientists on their 8,000-kilometre voyage from South America for the Polynesian Islands on a wooden raft in 1947, Norwegian producer Aage Aaberge made two versions back-to-back.

The first, which was premiered at the Norwegian International Film Festival in Haugesund and now has exceeded 800,000 admissions domestically is with a Norwegian-Swedish-and-whatever-language-is-spoken for subtitling, the other - with English dialogue – will be ready later this month.

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Kon-Tiki was internationally launched at the Toronto International Film Festival, and UK co-producer Jeremy Thomas's sales outfit HanWay Films has so far licensed the action-adventure to 40 territories. But the UK and the US are still missing – the distributors are waiting for the international version with English dialogue.

"In the first version, Hagen’s English is pretty bad, because in real life Heyerdahl's English was not particularly good, while in the second it is perfect," explained Aaberge, who confirmed that €9.4 million (NOK 70 million) private investment in Norway's so-far most expensive feature (€12.9 million/NOK 93 million) has now been covered.

Scripted by Petter Skavlan, Kon-Tiki was filmed during 20 weeks in six countries starring Pål Sverre Hagen, Odd-Magnus Wiliamson, Tobias Santelmann, Anders Baasmi Christiansen, Jakob Oftebro, Agnes Kittelsen and Swedish actor Gustaf Skarsgård. The original 8,000-kilometre voyage in 1947 took 101 days.

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