27/02/2009

Eva Dahr’s The Orange Girl [+see also:
trailer
film profile], one of the biggest Norwegian films of 2009, is opening today through Sandrew Metronome. The film was co-produced with Germany and Spain.

The Orange Girl is the third novel by philosophical writer Jostein Gaarder to be adapted for the screen, following Sophie’s World and Through a Glass, Darkly [+see also:
trailer
film profile]. Producer Axel Helgeland told Cineuropa that what attracted him to the novel (translated into 38 languages) was the “beautiful, almost mythical love story, enclosed in a father-son dialogue accross the border of life and death, which gives the book a very clear existential perspective.”

Dahr, who directed the 2007 Norwegian hit Mars & Venus [+see also:
trailer
film profile], described The Orange Girl as “a strongly visual film, which with warmth and insight tells three different interwoven stories. Each of them has its own basic mood and key words, which are Love, Life and Death, and Hope, respectively.”

The €3m film was co-produced by Germany’s Tradewind Pictures, Spain’s Jaleo Films and Sandrew Metronome. It will be released theatrically in Germany and Spain later this fall. Beta Cinema handles world sales.

Other films opening today include Tom Tykwer’s US film The International [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Walt Disney Studios), starring Clive Owen, and the Icelandic family film No Network (SEG Distribution) by Ari Kristinsson.

Three local films were in the Top Ten last weekend: the family franchise film The Olsen Junior Gang & the Black Gold (number two); WWII drama Max Manus [+see also:
trailer
film profile], still number three after ten weeks and a record one milion admissions; and Berlinale hit North [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Rune Denstad Langlo
film profile] (in tenth place with over 21,000 admissions). The Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Danny Boyle
film profile] was number six with 62,737 admissions for SF Norge.