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This idealistic feature draws parallels between the struggles of immigrant Polish workers in Norway and the homophobia faced by two young lovers, but can’t quite sew up the two seams

Director Leiv Igor Devold makes an unexpected link-up between Norway, the country where he grew up, and Poland, where he attended film school, in this idealistic but sometimes heavy-handed second feature. He also finds invigorating cross-currents in contrasting the collectivist struggles of immigrant Polish fish-processing workers with another oppressed minority: the stuttering romance, in the face of homophobia, between young wage slave Robert (Hubert Miłkowski) and his supervisor Ivar (Karl Bekele Steinland).

Robert finds himself gutting salmon in a factory on a Norwegian island in order to send money back home. But it is Ivar – the black adopted son of the factory owner Bjorn (Øyvind Brandtzæg) – who gets under his skin. A wannabe actor slumming it courtesy of dad,...

Filmfest Hamburg has 17 films funded by Moin screening at the festival.

Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein’s regional film fund Moin will have a strong presence at this year’s Filmfest Hamburg.

17 films funded by Moin will screen at the festival, including international productions such as Nicolaj Arcel’s King’s Land and Alice Troughton’s The Lesson as well as Isabal Herguera’s animated feature Sultana’s Dream and Leiv Igor Devold’s Norwegian Dream.

Other Moin backed features include new works by German filmmakers ranging from Sven Halfar (Heaven Can Wait - Wir Leben Jetzt) through to Stephan Rick (The Roots...

“Forest,” an Italian eco-themed animation film about deforestation, has scored some strong pre-sales for Rome-based True Colours at the Cannes Marché du film.

The still-in-production 3-D animation feature – the protagonist of which is a young mushroom named Fey – has been picked up for roughly 20 territories by Top Film Distribution which will distribute “Forest” in Ukraine, Cis, the Baltics, and Eastern European countries including former Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Poland, Czech and Slovak Republics, Romania, and Hungary.

Helmed by Luca Della Grotta and Francesco Dafano, the film is produced by Italy’s Al One, the same team that previously spawned 2020 similarly themed animation feature “Trash” that sold in more than 30 countries.

“Forest” – which is the first animation title on the True Colours slate and a rare case of an Italian animation feature film – was presented last year as an in-development project at specialized co-production platforms including Cartoon Movie in the French city of Bordeaux.

Italian sales company True Colours has closed a raft of sales following Berlin’s European Film Market. Italy’s box office hit “La Stranezza” (“Strangeness”) got picked up for a dozen territories and queer romantic drama “Norwegian Dream” also sold widely, including to North America.

Directed by Roberto Andò, “Strangeness” (pictured) toplines Toni Servillo (“The Great Beauty”) as Nobel-prize-winning playwright Luigi Pirandello. This tragicomic period piece about how Pirandello found inspiration to write his masterpiece “Six Characters in Search of an Author” has been a sleeper hit at the Italian box office, coming from nowhere to pull more than €5.5 million ($5.8 million) and becoming the local 2022 box office champ.

Now “Strangeness,” which is produced by Bibi Film and Tramp Limited with Rai Cinema and Medusa, will be playing in: Spain (Alfa Pictures); Poland (Aurora Film); Portugal (Il Sorpasso); Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay (Zeta Film); former Yugoslavia (Stars Media); Taiwan...

The queer love story is a Norway-Poland co-production.

Rome-based True Colours has taken international sales rights to Norwegian-Polish director Leiv Igor Devold’s fiction feature debut Norwegian Dream, the winner of the Screen International Best Pitch Award at this year’s Polish Days in Wroclaw. The film is now in post-production and True Colours will start talking to buyers at the upcoming Ventana Sur in Buenos Aires.

Norwegian Dream is about a 19-year-old Polish immigrant working in a fish factory in Norway to pay off his mother’s debts. He begins to develop feelings for a colleague who is very...

The queer love story is a Norway-Poland co-production.

Rome-based True Colours has taken international sales rights to Norwegian-Polish director Leiv Igor Devold’s fiction feature debut Norwegian Dream, the winner of the Screen International Best Pitch Award at this year’s Polish Days in Wroclaw. The film is now in post-production.

Norwegian Dream is about a 19-year-old Polish immigrant working in a fish factory in Norway to pay off his mother’s debts. He begins to develop feelings for a colleague who is very confident in his own sexuality in a way he is not.

First footage from the film...

The coming-of-age drama is set in a fish factory.

Leiv Igor Devold’s debut feature Norwegian Dream has received the Screen International Best Pitch Award as one of the works in progress presented at this year’s Polish Days, the industry event for the Wroclaw-based New Horizons International Film Festival (July 21-31).

The €1m Norway-Poland-Germany co-production by Spaett Film, Solo Film and Riva Film, is a coming-of-age drama about a 19-year-old Polish immigrant who works at a fish factory in Norway and is struggling with his feelings for his colleague. When a strike begins among the Polish workers at the factory,...

Slovak director Robert Kirchhoff is in postproduction with his documentary “All Men Become Brothers,” which follows the life of Czechoslovak politician Alexander Dubček (1921-1992), Film New Europe reports.

Dubček was leader of Czechoslovakia from January 1968 to April 1969. He attempted to reform the communist government during the Prague Spring, but was forced to resign following the Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968.

The film is produced by Kirchhoff’s Atelier.doc and coproduced by Radio and Television Slovakia, Czech Republic’s Endorfilm and Czech Television.

Kirchhoff’s past titles include “Normalization,” which received a Special Mention from the Between the Seas jury at Jihlava Intl. Documentary Film Festival.

Production took place from 2018 to 2021 on locations in Kyrgyzstan, Italy, Czech Republic, Germany, Turkey and Slovakia. Well-known figures from Czechoslovak and international politics and culture, such as Italian politician Romano Prodi, Italian novelist Umberto Eco, Czech novelist and playwright Pavel Kohout, and Czech director...

Industry event to showcase four completed films, eight works in progress and 10 pitches.

New feature projects by Piotr Domalewski, Jan Holoubek and Daria Woszek are among 22 films being presented at the 10th edition of industry event Polish Days, which will run from July 24 – 26.

Polish Days takes place during the New Horizons International Film Festival in Wrocław, presenting new projects to festival programmers, sales agents, producers and distributors.

This year’s event will feature closed screenings of four completed films, the pitching of 10 projects in development and eight works in progress.

The closed screenings section will offer sneak previews of Łukasz Machowski...

More than 300 global Zoom meetings organised for works in progress, co-production market.

The $58,000 Eurimages Lab Project Award at Haugesund’s New Nordic Films has been presented to A Blind Man Who Did Not Want To See Titanic from Finnish director Teemu Nikki and producer Jani Pösö from Helsiniki-based It’s Alive Films.

The film is about Jaakko, a wheelchair-bound blind man who wants to make a challenging journey to see his girlfriend.

The jury praised Blind Man’s “bold artistic approach, that the director and producer propose, takes us deep into the universe of a blind man who has to confront...

Haugesund’s New Nordic Films will run as a hybrid event Aug 18-21.

Isabella Eklof, the Danish director of Sundance 2018 selection Holiday and co-writer of Cannes 2018 award-winner Border, is presenting her new feature project Kalak as part of Haugesund’s New Nordic Films Co-Production Market (August 18-21).

This year’s hybrid event will see with some participants physically attend the event in Norway and others watching online films and presentations.

Scroll down for the full list

Kalak is Eklof’s second feature and is set in Greenland. It is about a man who tries to escape the demons of childhood...

Anne Wivel’s Mand Falder will open the festival, which will screen 200 docs including 60 world premieres.

Copenhagen documentary festival Cph:dox has revealed the programme for its 13th edition, which runs Nov 5-15.

The line-up features 200 documentaries including 60 world premieres, 18 European premieres and 14 international premieres.

Danish film Mand Falder, directed by Anne Wivel, will open the festival. The film centres around the artist Per Kirkeby and his recovery after suffering from a brain hemorrhage.

16 documentaries will compete in the main competition for the Dox:award, including Friedrich Moser’s journalistic docu-thriller A Good American about William Binney’s programme ‘Thinthread’ that could have prevented 9/11, but was cancelled by the Nsa, and Aslaug Holm’s Norwegian documentary Brodre, which was shot over 8 years and centres around two boys growing up.

Helena Trestikova’s Czech documentary Mallory about life at the bottom of Czech society also features in the competition, which was won last year by Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Look of Silence.

Sean McAllister...

Norwegian director Hallvard Bræin’s action comedy Børning received both the jury and the audiences’ film prize at the ceremony in Haugesund’s Maritim HallScroll down for full list of winners

Norwegian director Hallvard Bræin’s feature debut, Børning – a local twist of Cannonball Run (1981), which became last year’s most popular Norwegian film, taking 381,648 admissions – was also the big winner at the Amanda awards ceremony in Haugesund on Saturday (Aug 15).

At the TV2 Norge televised presentation in Haugesund’s Maritim Hall, preceding today’s opening of the 43rd Norwegian International Film Festival, Børning received Amandas – Norway’s national film prizes - including Best Norwegian Feature, the People’s Amanda, Best Supporting Actor (Henrik Mestad) and Best Sound Design (Fredric Vogel, Petter Fladeby).

The frontrunner for the awards - Norwegian director Bent Hamer 1001 Grams (1001 gram), which has so far toured 25 international film festivals – was nominated in six categories, but won only Best Original Screenplay.

For the first...