15/10/2013 - Norway’s National Library and the Norwegian Film Institute will honour the director with screenings, seminars and exhibitions

The 100^th anniversary of Norway’s most famous director, Arne Skouen (photo - October 18, 1913 - May 24, 2003), who signed 17 features between 1949-1969, will be celebrated by a programme of screenings, seminars and exhibitions organised by Norway’s National Library and the Norwegian Film Institute.

Originally a journalist – first sports editor of the Dagbladet, later specialising in culture – Skouen was also an author and a playwright, before he made his first feature, Boys from the Streets, in 1949. Nine Lives (1957) was nominated for an Oscar as Best Foreign-Language Feature; The Master and His Servants (1959) competed in Berlin, and Cold Tracks (1962) in Moscow.

Shortly before the anniversary, the National Library in Oslo – which has restored all his films for the occasion – received the Skouen archives, “which reflect the diversity of his work, through drafts for articles, scripts, stills, film and theatre posters,” per the Library’s Bente Granrud. Letters from and photos with, ao, Norwegian author Johan Borgen and UK author Salman Rushdie, were also in the files.

The National Library will tour an exhibition of posters from his films in Norway, and on his very birthday (October 18) a part of its annual film conference is devoted to his work. On October 23 it will collaborate with the Norwegian Film Institute for a celebration at Filmens Hus in Oslo, including a screening of Boys from the Streets, an exhibition, the announcement of Skouen’s Honorary Prize and the presentation of a DVD box with all his 17 titles. Previously shown at this year’s Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna, his Nine Lives will unspool on October 20 at the BFI London Film Festival.