10/01/2013 - Hisham Zaman's feature debut, Before Snowfall, launches the Norwegian film year of 2013, "a good year for Norwegian films, both audience and quality-wise", according to the Norwegian Film Institute

The Norwegian film year of 2013 takes off to a flying start: the first premiere (on January 15), Kurdish-Norwegian director Hisham Zaman's feature debut, Before Snowfall [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (photo), will be launched at Norway's Tromsø International Film Festival, then continue to Sweden's Göteborg International Film Festival, where it will compete for the €117,000 Dragon Award for Best Nordic Film.

Before Snowfall was one of the 10 releases during the early part of 2013, which the Norwegian Film Institute introduced yesterday (Jan 9) to industry and press at Oslo's Filmens Hus, where managing director Nina Refseth was looking forward to "a good year for Norwegian films, both audience and quality-wise". She expected Norwegian cinema this year to compensate for a weak performance in 2012, where admissions for local fare dropped to 2.1 million admissions or 24.1% less than in 2011. "This year will be different - my personal bet is we will reach 2.8 million admissions, if not more," Refseth said.

30 new features - 24 Norwegian, six co-productions - are waiting on the launching pad for 2013, and Refseth emphasised they included seven children's films, two of them shortly to open: Arne Lindtner Næss' Karsten og Petra blir bestevenner and Rasmus A Sivertsen-Rune Spaans' fully-animated Ploddy the Police Car on the Trail. "They have been rare in recent years, so the institute has now decided to support at least five children's film projects annually." She also observed that there were only two films by women directors among the early premieres: "We obviously want more, and our New Ways to Features scheme seems to have already found some."

Release schedule for Norwegian Films in 2013:

Jan 15: Hisham Zaman's Before Snowfall

Jan 18: Nishta Jain's Gulabi Gang (documentary). Matthias Glasner's Mercy (German-Norwegian co-production) 

Feb 1: Eirik Svensson's Must Have Been Love  

Feb 15: Arne Lindtner Næss' Karsten og Petra blir bestevenner (English title tba). Rune Denstad Langlo's Chasing the Wind

March 1: Torun Lian's Victoria

March 22: Arild Østin Ommundsen's Eventyrland (English title TBA)

May 3: Rasmus A Sivertsen-Rune Spaans' Ploddy the Police Car on the Trail

July 26: Johan Kaos's Pornopung (English title TBA)