28/08/2006

Maria von Heland’s first Swedish film, Search (Sök), and Norwegian director Hans Petter Moland’s Comrade Pedersen are among the 21 films competing for the Grand Prix des Ameriques at this year’s 30th Montreal World Film Festival, which started last Thursday and ends on September 4.

Based on the director’s original script, Search is the story of a 38 year-old single woman who starts dating on the Internet, in search of a long, committed relationship. But the more men she meets, the further from family happiness she finds herself. Starring Amanda Ooms (.Harry’s Daughters) and Michael Persbrandt, the film was produced by Hepp Film and is being sold internationally by Trust Film Sales. Sonet Film will handle the Swedish release on September 8.

Comrade Pedersen, starring Ane Dahl Torp (Berlin’s Shooting Star 2006) and Kristoffer Joner, is the screen adaptation of Dag Soldad’s best-selling novel. Set in 1968 in the Norwegian Left wing party, it is the story young high school teacher Knut Pedersen who arrives in Larvik dreaming of a bourgeois existence. His unrest soon pushes him towards the seductive Marxist-Leninist party AKP and the beautiful Nina, who convinces him that this absurd and utopian idea is perhaps conceivable. Produced by Mothlys Film, the film is the fourth most successful Norwegian film of 2006 with over 184,000 admissions so far. Non Stop Sales is handling world sales.

Also screening in official selection but out of competition are Danish double-award winning Berlin 2006 title A Soap [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Lars Bredo Rahbek
interview: Pernille Fischer Christensen
film profile] by Pernille Fischer Christensen and Swedish film Mouth to Mouth by Björn Runge.