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PRODUCTION Norway

Film Fund backs Lien and Straume

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Two of Norway’s top directors Unni Straume and Jens Lien have just been awarded NKr 5 million and Nkr 8,5 million each for their new projects from the Norwegian Film Fund.
Unni Straume will direct Love based on a script by famous Polish scriptwriter and long-time collaborator to Krzysztof Kieslowki: Krzysztof Piesewicz. The ambitious project with a total budget of Nkr 34,3m will be the first film adaptation of Piesewicz’s three scripts: Faith, Hope and Love. It will describe different aspects of love through a love story based in contemporary New York.
Unni Straume has previously directed Dreamplay selected at Cannes’ sidebar section Un Certain Regard in 1994, and the acclaimed Music For Weddings and Funerals with Lena Endre (2002).
Two well-established producers on the international film scene will supervise the film for USF International: the Norwegian Tom Remlov, former Head of Norsk Film AS who backed among others Aberdeen and Straume’s Music for Weddings…, and the Icelandic-born Joni Sighvatsson who’s been living many years in the US where he produced such major films as Wild at Heart and Basquiat. Both producers are aiming at Berlin 2006 for the film’s international premiere.

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The second film which was awarded Nkr 8.5m towards its Nkr 15.5m budget is Jens Lien’s Den Brysomme Mannen. The film will be Liens’ second feature film after Johnny Vang, selected at Berlin’s Panorama Section in 2003. The script is written by Per Schreiner from his own radio. The film is backed by Jørgen Storm Rosenberg (Tordenfilm) whose first film production Uno was last year’s surprise box office hit in Norway (290,000 admissions). According to Erlend Loe, Head of the Norwegian Film Fund’s feature film department, Den Brysomme Mannen will be “different from all the other Norwegian films seen the last couple of years”. It will tell the surrealistic story of a 40 year-old man who arrives in a strange city without knowing where he comes. The film will start shooting in April 2005 with a release date set by distributor Sandrew Metronome for April 2006.

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