(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
[film wave] We are at Larvik railway station once in the 1970 century, and high school teacher Knut Pedersen casts his eyes on Nina Skåtøy for the first time. The revolutionary professor's daughter from Oslo reveals himself in a symphony of fighting songs, red tabs and Mao hats, and Pedersen realizes that he too can become part of a worldwide, revolutionary movement. In the next years of his life, he devoted himself to AKP (ml), Nina Skåtøy and the political class struggle.
Friday was the Norwegian premiere of Hans Petter Moland's filming of Dag Solstad's novel Gymnaslærer Pedersen's account of the great political revival that haunted our country, and through diligent cross-cutting between Mao and his disciples at Heavenly Peace Square and the political everyday life in Larvik on 1970- The figure reminds us of how the ML movement viewed itself as part of a world struggle. Secondary teacher Pedersen is also the starting point for a new wave of political films in Norway.
A politicized world
- When we live in such an extremely politicized world, it would have been very strange if we did not get more political films. That politics is now coming more strongly into Norwegian film is reminiscent of what we have seen in Norwegian literature over the past six or seven years, says Nikolaj Frobenius, feature film consultant at the Norwegian Film Fund.
The Film Fund has now distributed money to several films that will dig into big politics to show the individual fates that are hiding behind. Nils Gaup makes a film about the Kautokeino uprising in 1852, Petter Næs and Marius Holst are working on feature films about refugees from Kurdistan and Kosovo respectively, while Thomas Robsahm has received support for the cinematic documentary Modern Slavery, about the victims in the wake of economic liberalism's policies. Frobenius just highlights the documentary as an important pioneer.
- The international documentary has in recent years moved away from the private sphere, and found its way back to its old political and socially conscious self. This now also applies in the field of fiction, without it ending up in a dogmatic or ideological type of film.
human destiny
Behind Moland's colorful, communist-kitsch in high school teacher Pedersen hides tragic fates. As in international films such as Paradise Now, Turtles Can Fly, Syriana and Munich, it is the personal stories behind big politics that are most important to Norwegian-Kurdish filmmaker Hisham Zaman. Last year he made a success with the strong short film Bawke, about a Kurdish father and son fleeing through Europe to Oslo.
- I am frightened by how the world develops and see that conflict increasingly takes over for dialogue. My only answer is to use the film to tell about things I consider unfair, and it is my duty as a filmmaker to point out what is happening in my everyday life. I am not concerned with the direct political, but the personal, dramatic and humorous everyday life behind politics. Then it does not matter if your characters speak Norwegian or Kurdish, Zaman believes.
Bawke recently won the Youth Jury award at the short film festival in Clermont-Ferrand, and now Zaman is financing the short film Winterland, a black comedy about a Kurdish woman in Northern Norway who marries a Kurdish lady he has not met before. After that, he hopes to make his first feature film, on the same escape theme as in Bawke.
- I now see that you dare to invest in serious films all over the world. It does not matter where your characters come from – pain is pain, and drama is drama. The films I like have contact with reality, even though they create a constructed world. A filmmaker must know people in the environment he is going to tell stories from and become friends with them. But the environments and people I want to make films about, have until now only had extra roles in Norwegian films, and then only as gangsters or laundry assistants.
It is not yet good to say where this political wave ends, but Nikolaj Frobenius can at least promise that no one will accuse the Norwegian film industry of being held hostage by a feel-good wave anymore.
- I can guarantee that Norwegian film will no longer be engulfed by young men who are only concerned with their own private sphere. Of course, there will still be new feelgood movies, but that wave is now over. n
NEXT GENERATION: Norwegian film will in the future be characterized by a new generation of filmmakers who want things differently, believes the 30 year-old Norwegian-Kurdish director Hisham Zaman. PHOTO: ELLEN LORENZEN
