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Still hope for Eyolf film

24.08.2007
Written by: Jens-Morten Hanssen
Ulrich Thomsen is newsworthy as Alfred Allmers
The team behind the film project "The Frost", based on Little Eyolf, has had the chance to experience first hand how difficult it can be to receive funding in Norway for film projects based on Ibsen´s works. "The Frost" is a Spanish-Swedish-Norwegian co-production but this summer NRK announced that the cooperation with the Norwegian partner, Original Film AS, had been terminated because the Norwegian Film Fund had turned down their funding application for the film. Now however another Norwegian co-producer, Frost Media, is involved with the project.
Theatre audiences all over the world never get enough of Ibsen. 2006 offered a programme of almost 350 different Ibsen productions but not a single new Ibsen film. There is no shortage of plans for film projects. In 2002 Ibsen.net reported all of twelve Ibsen film projects in the planning stages. Only two of these have been realised, an American film version of Hedda Gabler from 2004 and Erik Skjoldbjærg´s En folkefiende from 2005. The former is only shown at festivals in the USA, while Nordisk Film´s jumping the gun on the Ibsen year with Erik Skjoldbjærg´s En folkefiende did not meet expectations, neither artistically speaking nor commercially.

In the autumn of last year Liv Ullmann´s prestigious A Doll´s House with a cast of international stars was shelved due to insufficient financing from Norway. The plan was to shoot Ullmann´s film in Ålesund.

Also the film "The Frost" will be shot in Ålesund, and the Spanish producer Raül Perales of the Spanish film company Alta Realitat and his two co-producers Christer Nilson of Göta Film and Eirik Vaage of Frost Media share a strong conviction that shooting will commence in the spring of 2008. Volda-based Frost Media is now applying for funding for the film at the regional level, and is meeting with a positive response in Sunnmøre, according to the reports of Eirik Vaage to Ibsen.net. Frost Media hopes that this project can contribute to developing a film community in the northern part of Western Norway.

The film crew is ready. The married couple Alfred and Rita Allmers will be played by the Danish Ulrich Thomsen (The Celebration and Adam´s Apples) and Swedish Annika Hallin (Kissed by Winter). Bibi Andersson will also take part in the role of the Rat-Wife (Rottejomfruen). The remainder of the cast includes Norwegian Eva Mørkeset and Astrid Overaa and Spanish Fermí Reixach, Paül Perales and Jordi Cortés. Ferran Audi is responsible for both the screenplay and direction. The Swedish dramatist Lars Norén is contributing to the work on the film dialogue, which will be in English. Last year Norén staged Little Eyolf for the Swedish National Touring Theatre and the Norwegian National Theatre.

A film version of Little Eyolf has never before been made. If the film is ever produced "The Frost" will be Ibsen-film no. 60 on the list (cf. Ibsen.net´s Ibsen filmography).