03/11/2021 - The country’s film agency has supported projects by two established directors, Bård Breien and Jens Lien, and those of two emerging filmmakers, Kaveh Tehrani and Johanna Pyykkö

Director Kaveh Tehrani, whose project Listen Up! has received €1.181 million in support (© Achy Ouafik)

The Norwegian Film Institute has announced that it is supporting four new feature-length projects. On this occasion, the agency’s production bursaries will amount to 38.9 million Norwegian crowns (circa €4 million).

Speaking about the selected projects, the institute’s director, Kjersti Mo, said: “In this round of funding, we have granted our support to two emerging and two experienced directors, and to the production of four very strong and diverse projects. These are four stories that we think will meet a wide audience and hopefully will bring even more people to the cinemas.”

The first backed project is Listen Up!, helmed by Kaveh Tehrani and produced by Motlys AS (11.5 million Norwegian crowns/€1.181 million). The Norwegian-Iranian filmmaker’s debut feature is based on Gulraiz Sharif's novel of the same name, and was penned by Erlend Loe and Nora Landsrød. It follows 15-year-old Mahmoud, who, during the summer holidays, must endure huge trials both as a brother and as a son in a Pakistani family.

The second project, helmed by first-timer Johanna Pyykkö and staged by Oslo Pictures AS, received a production bursary of 5,915,758 Norwegian crowns (€608,000). Ebba will centre on the titular 18-year-old girl. One night, she comes across a handsome man who has lost his memory, and pretends to be his girlfriend.

The grant of the biggest magnitude (13 million Norwegian crowns/€1.335 million) went to Bård Breien’s Havnaa. Produced by Maipo Film AS, the movie tells the story of two brothers – one is the greatest boxer in Norwegian history, but he is perhaps best known as the sibling of one of the country’s greatest bank robbers. Previously, Breien worked on several TV series and the features Detective Downs [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2013) and The Art of Negative Thinking [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2006).

Finally, Jens Lien’s Joe’s Assignment received a grant of 8.5 million Norwegian crowns (€873,000). Staged by Einar Drama AS, the feature has been described as a “dystopian comedy and vision of the future where robots have made humans redundant”. Lien is best known for his debut feature, Jonny Vang (2003), as well as The Bothersome Man [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jens Lien
interview: Jørgen Storm Rosenberg
film profile] (2006) and Sons of Norway [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (2011).