26/05/2006

Jørgen Storm Resenberg, producer of Jens Lien’s The Bothersome Man [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jens Lien
interview: Jørgen Storm Rosenberg
film profile], is a lucky man. The black comedy, unveiled in Cannes’ Critics’ Week section, had an excellent word-of-mouth and was released yesterday in Norway by Sandrew Metronome .

Back in France, Aksel Hennie’s Uno, a local hit with critics and audiences in 2004, is playing on five French screens under the Haut et Court Distribution banner, and has just been released on DVD in the US.

Getting ready for a one-day trip back to Oslo for the premiere of The Bothersome Man before returning to Cannes for the end of the festival and the awards announcements, Storm Resenberg told Cineuropa about the challenges of putting The Bothersome Man together. “It was Jens Lien who approached me with the script”, explained the producer. “He liked the way I looked at the story and basically chose me!”

Putting together the €2.1m film was not an easy task precisely because of the story – in a word, a man is thrown alive into the world of the dead – and absence of bankable stars. The Norwegian Film Fund covered some 60% of the budget and the Icelandic Film Company came on board, but Storm Resenberg’s own production outfit, Tordenfilm, had to use some of its own cash from Uno to close the financing on The Bothersome Man. As Cannes winds down, Bavaria Film International, which is handling world sales, is closing a string of sales on the film.

Tordenfilm AS is co-headed by Eric Vogel, who is also at Cannes discussing the company’s latest project with festival programmers: Sønner (lit. “Sons”), the feature film debut of Erik Richter Strand, a graduate from the Lillehammer Film School. The gritty drama, about 25 year-old Lars who sets out to get revenge on the man who assaulted him as a child, will be ready in time for Venice or Toronto.