02/10/2006

Joachim Trier’s feature debut Reprise [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Joachim Trier
interview: Karin Julsrud
film profile] has been chosen by the Norwegian Oscar committee among many potential candidates as Norway’s contender for an Oscar nomination as Best Foreign Language Film.

“We have great confidence in this year’s candidate. It is unusual, poetic and exciting, and captures the audience from the very first moment”, said Jan Erik Holst, chairman of the committee and head of the international department of the Norwegian Film Institute.

The film had its world premiere at this summer’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, where it won the Best Director and Don Quixote Awards. It then continued to win over festival audiences at Toronto, where it was given the prestigious Discovery Award by the 900 members of the attending press. Released domestically through Columbia/Nordisk on September 8, the film has garnered over 31,000 admissions so far.

Norwegian-Danish director Trier is a graduate of London’s National Film & TV School. His 2002 short film Proctor won both the Best British and Best European short film at the Edinburgh Film Festival.

According to the filmmaker, Reprise which he co-wrote with Eskil Vogt, is a "playful film about friendship, madness and creativity, love and sorrow, great ambitions and the often unpleasant clash between youthful presumptions and reality."

The film was produced by Karin Julsrud for 4 ½ Productions in Norway in co-production with Sweden’s FilmLance International. Nordisk Film International Sales is handling world sales.

The nominations for Best Foreign Language Film will be announced on January 23 and the 79th Academy Awards ceremony will take place on February 25 at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles. Norway was last represented in the final race by Petter Næss’ Elling [+see also:
trailer
film profile] in 2001.