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Lilja Ingolfsdottir’s “Loveable” won big on Saturday night at the Amanda Awards, Norway’s national movie prizes, ultimately picking up four plaudits, including best Norwegian film.

The film, which premiered at Karlovy Vary, has been praised at international festivals for its observant portrayal of a relationship going sour.

“There are thousands of traditional love stories about couples,” said Ingolfsdottir. “We have high divorce rates, but before a person leaves, something must have happened. What is that? We have such a hard time trying to connect,” she told Variety.

Helga Guren – cast as Maria, who is shocked to discover her husband wants a divorce – was awarded the prize for best actor in a leading role. It was Guren’s first Amanda win.

“I just wanted to have a flawed, multilayered female character who is a human being like all of us. She’s empowering herself by looking at her dysfunctionality...

Plot: An aging gangster attempts to reconnect with his children and rectify the mistakes in his past, but the criminal underworld won’t loosen their grip willingly.

Review: Over the last sixteen years, Liam Neeson has consistently delivered a string of variations on his 2008 hit Taken. Outside of a handful of exceptions, the Oscar-nominated actor has made movie after movie about cops and soldiers using their particular sets of skills to take down bad guys who underestimate the elderly protagonist. As those projects have begun to blur together, Neeson has had some tricks up his sleeve with voice work in The Lego Movie, comedic turns in A Million Ways To Die In The West, and the occasional big-budget offering. The ones that utilize Neeson’s gravitas and everyman demeanor have stood out from the over fifty projects he has acted on or voiced during that span. You can add Absolution to that shortlist.

The Göteborg Film Festival’s film industry confab, the Nordic Film Market, unspooling Jan 31-Feb. 2, has unveiled in exclusivity to Variety its 2024 lineup comprising 58 new and upcoming Nordic films.

These are directed by newcomers and bona fide helmers such as Hans Petter Moland, Rúnar Rúnarsson, Charlotte Sieling, Daniel Espinosa and Pirjo Honkasalo.

Just over two weeks before kick-off, a record number of delegates – 507 from 33 countries – have signed up for the biggest film market in the Nordic region.

The 90-plus international buyers, 90 funding bodies, 60 festival programmers and 50 sales agents can look forward to a revamped showcase, both in terms of programming and set-up, with a new hub for networking and accommodation at the Clarion Hotel Draken. “We’re very excited about making this year’s venue both new and familiar for delegates coming to Göteborg,” said head of industry Josef Kullengård.

“The industry has entered a slowdown, but creatively, the Nordic...

Keeping it in the family is very much a Hollywood tradition at this point, and in the 21st century acting families are still thriving. Whether it be Cuba Gooding Jr.’s son Mason joining the cast of the last two Scream movies, Lily-Rose Depp leading The Idol, Maya Hawke becoming a fan favorite in Stranger Things, or Ethan Peck (grandson of Gregory) roaming the bridge of the Enterprise in Star Trek, there’s always a new generation of nepo babies lurching from crib to screen.

But one man is overwhelmingly leading the pack in terms of famous male offspring these days. A man who could conceivably consider the Kardashians his Warios. And that’s Stellan Skarsgård.

A Swedish gentleman well into his 70s with an effortlessly friendly demeanour and a soothingly craggy face, Skarsgård now has eight children, and it’s a solid bet that if you see the name...

Stellan Skarsgård on Maria Sødahl’s Oscar shortlisted Hope (Håp): “Many directors just put the camera on the person talking but she records the reactions from every character in the film.”

Stellan Skarsgård starred in Hans Petter Moland’s Out Stealing Horses, In Order Of Disappearance, A Somewhat Gentle Man, Zero Kelvin, and Aberdeen. When he was approached to portray Tomas, a rendition of Moland, in Maria Sødahl’s stunning piece of auto-fiction, Hope (Håp), Stellan told me: “When I first considered I’m actually going to play one of my best friends, I was thinking, but I cannot imitate him … But then of course I just cut loose and did the material from the script."

Tomas (Stellan Skarsgård) with Anja (Andrea Bræin Hovig) in Hope (Håp) Photo: Manuel Alberto Claro

In Hope, Anja (Andrea Bræin Hovig) returning home to Oslo from directing a successful stage production abroad, is greeted by her youngest child,...

Global Swedish star Stellan Skarsgård (“Chernobyl”) has long collaborated with Norwegian director Hans Petter Moland (“Aberdeen” and “A Somewhat Gentle Man”). Their most recent film, “Out Stealing Horses,” celebrated its world premiere in Competition at the 2019 Berlinale and is now Norway’s official Oscar entry for Best International Film Feature.

Magnolia Pictures has acquired U.S. rights to the film and is planning a 2020 theatrical release. Magnolia released Moland’s “In Order of Disappearance,” also starring Skarsgård, and often handles Scandinavian Oscar nominees. Last year, Magnolia’s release “Shoplifters” competed in the foreign language category for Japan, ultimately losing out to Alfonso Cuarón’s hit “Roma.”

Adapted by Moland from Per Petterson’s beloved 2003 novel “Out Stealing Horses,” the story follows 67-year-old widower Trond Sander (Skarsgård) as he transitions to a lonely retirement in the breathtaking but desolate landscape of eastern Norway. As winter arrives, he finds a neighbor who...

Global Swedish star Stellan Skarsgård (“Chernobyl”) has long collaborated with Norwegian director Hans Petter Moland (“Aberdeen” and “A Somewhat Gentle Man”). Their most recent film, “Out Stealing Horses,” celebrated its world premiere in Competition at the 2019 Berlinale and is now Norway’s official Oscar entry for Best International Film Feature.

Magnolia Pictures has acquired U.S. rights to the film and is planning a 2020 theatrical release. Magnolia released Moland’s “In Order of Disappearance,” also starring Skarsgård, and often handles Scandinavian Oscar nominees. Last year, Magnolia’s release “Shoplifters” competed in the foreign language category for Japan, ultimately losing out to Alfonso Cuarón’s hit “Roma.”

Adapted by Moland from Per Petterson’s beloved 2003 novel “Out Stealing Horses,” the story follows 67-year-old widower Trond Sander (Skarsgård) as he transitions to a lonely retirement in the breathtaking but desolate landscape of eastern Norway. As winter arrives, he finds a neighbor who...

HBO Europe has greenlit its second original production from Norway, giving an order to Utmark (Wilderness), an eight-part comedy-drama from Kim Fupz Aakeson, an author and screenwriter whose credits include A Somewhat Gentle Man and In Order of Disappearance.

Aakeson will write all eight episodes of Wilderness, which follows the adventures of an optimistic new school teacher hoping for a fresh start who comes into a small, isolated Norwegian town in the middle of nowhere. But the locals —including a corrupt sheriff, an alcoholic shepherd, a nature-loving bootlegger, a God-hating pastor and a grieving pimp —are not so open to outsiders. A ...

HBO Europe has greenlit its second original production from Norway, giving an order to Utmark (Wilderness), an eight-part comedy-drama from Kim Fupz Aakeson, an author and screenwriter whose credits include A Somewhat Gentle Man and In Order of Disappearance.

Aakeson will write all eight episodes of Wilderness, which follows the adventures of an optimistic new school teacher hoping for a fresh start who comes into a small, isolated Norwegian town in the middle of nowhere. But the locals — including a corrupt sheriff, an alcoholic shepherd, a nature-loving bootlegger, a God-hating pastor and a grieving pimp — are not so open to outsiders. A ...

Norwegian director Hans Petter Moland has carved out an international career with films such as A Somewhat Gentle Man (2010) and In Order of Disappearance (2014), dark crime comedies that combine wry humor and brutal on-screen violence in a way that evokes early Coen Brothers films or maybe a Scandinavian Tarantino. Moland directed the U.S. remake of In Order of Disappearance as the Liam Neeson vehicle Cold Pursuit. 

So Moland's new film Out Stealing Horses, is a bit of a surprise. The period drama, which premiere at the Berlin Film Festival last year and which Magnolia Pictures is releasing online and ...

Norwegian director Hans Petter Moland has carved out an international career with films such as A Somewhat Gentle Man (2010) and In Order of Disappearance (2014), dark crime comedies that combine wry humor and brutal on-screen violence in a way that evokes early Coen Brothers films or maybe a Scandinavian Tarantino. Moland directed the U.S. remake of In Order of Disappearance as the Liam Neeson vehicle Cold Pursuit. 

So Moland's new film Out Stealing Horses, is a bit of a surprise. The period drama, which premiere at the Berlin Film Festival last year and which Magnolia Pictures is releasing online and ...

New films by Agnieszka Holland, Agnes Varda and Isabel Coixet have been added to the official lineup of the upcoming Berlin Film Festival, along with special screenings of directorial debuts by British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor and “Narcos” star Wagner Moura of Brazil.

The Berlinale added 11 titles to its competition slate Thursday, representing countries such as China, Norway, Mongolia and Israel. Of the 18 competition titles selected so far, eight are directed by women, including festival opener “The Kindness of Strangers,” by Danish director Lone Scherfig.

Holland’s eagerly anticipated “Mr. Jones,” starring James Norton and Vanessa Kirby, will have its world premiere in Potsdamer Platz. The politically charged film centers on the real-life Welsh journalist Gareth Jones (Norton), whose reporting uncovered a deadly famine in Ukraine in the 1930s.

Another famine-themed film heading to Berlin is Ejiofor’s “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind,” which was recently acquired by Netflix and...

The Berlin Film Festival has added movies by Agnès Varda, Agnieszka Holland, Hans Petter Moland, Isabel Coixet and Wang Quan’an to its competition programme. Chiwetel Ejiofor’s directorial debut The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind will play in the Berlinale Special strand. Scroll down for the full list of additions to the batch of films already announced for the competition.

Coixet’s (The Bookshop) black-and-white feature Elisa & Marcela, the true-story of two women who got married in Spain in 1901 after one adopted a male identity, will likely receive an extra dose of media attention given that it is a Netflix acquisition, marking the streaming giant’s first film to screen in competition in Berlin. Festival director Dieter Kosslick has previously said that competition films must have a theatrical release.

Among other highlights announced today are James Norton and Vanessa Kirby starrer Mr. Jones from Polish director Agnieszka Holland and Italian mafia pic Piranhas,...

Out Stealing Horses

Norwegian director Hans Petter Moland reunites with Stellan Skarsgard for the fifth time in Out Stealing Horses, which also stars Man’s Bjorn Floburg. Produced by Turid Overseen and Hakon Overas of 4½ , it’s an adaptation of the 2003 international bestseller by Per Petterson, which was crowned “Norway’s biggest international literary success of all time.” Also among the cast are Danica Curcic and Anders Baasmo Christiansen. Moland’s sophomore film Zero Kelvin won a Special Mention at San Sebastian in 1995 and Aberdeen (2000) competed in Karlovy Vary.…...

Skarsgård reunites with Hans Petter Moland for adaptation of Per Petterson novel.

TrustNordisk have acquired sales rights to Out Stealing Horses from writer/director Hans Petter Moland, with Stellan Skarsgård taking the lead role.

Bjørn Floberg (Insomnia, Kingsman: The Secret Service) and Anders Baasmo (Kon-Tiki, The King’s Choice) have also been cast.

Moland’s previous films include Berlin competition titles The Beautiful Country (2004), A Somewhat Gentle Man (2010), and In Order Of Disappearance (2014).

Based on Per Petterson’s novel of the same name, Out Stealing sees Skarsgård play 67-year-old Trond, who must recall difficult experiences affter meeting a face from the past. Petterson’s book was named one of the New York Times’ ‘5 Best Fiction Books 2007.’

Out Stealing Horses is produced by Turid Øversveen and Karin Julsrud for 4 ½ Fiksjon in co-production with Zentropa Entertainments5, Zentropa Sweden, Helgeland Film, Film i Väst and Nordisk Film. Shooting begins on February 19th, with the final shooting phase in June or July...

Chances are, you've never seen a Norwegian film. Unlike other Nordic countries, Norway isn't exactly known as a cinematic powerhouse. Thanks to a simmering little film starring a Swedish actor, that may start changing. 

A Somewhat Gentle Man (En ganske snill mann) is a fair description of a small-time criminal released from prison after serving a 12-year sentence. Whatever he was in his pre-prison days, the now passive Ulrik (Stellan Skarsgård) has the opportunity to start his life over, only there isn't much of a life for him on the outside. He has no job, his wife left him, and his son is busy with a life of his own. Reliant on the charity of his old crime boss to find housing and gainful employment, Ulrik is not so much a broken man but a diminished one, a stranger in his own life. For all his passivity, Ulrik is the...

Cannes -- Strand Releasing has picked up Norwegian crowd-pleaser "A Somewhat Gentle Man" for North America from TrustNordisk.

Hans Petter Moland's wry crime comedy stars Stellan Skarsgaard as an ex-convict released from prison who tries to live a normal, quiet life but is also looking for vengeance against the snitch who put him in jail.

 

The film was a hit with critics and audiences at its international debut in competition at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year.

Strand plans to bow the film domestically in the fourth quarter of 2010.

TrustNordisk sales head Susan Wendt and Strand co-president Jon Gerrans negotiated the deal.

Recent Strand releases include Catherine Breillat's "Bluebeard" and "Spring Fever" from Lou Ye. Strand recently picked up Francois Ozon's "Hideaway" for a bow later this year:...

Once referred to as “the Ridley Scott of Norway" by film historian Peter Cowie, director Hans Petter Moland isn’t quite as prolific as his English counterpart but he is a talented dude. His last film, 2006’s Comrade Pedersen failed to make any major splashes internationally but it looks like Moland is forging ahead with a totally different tone. This time around, a comedy which is likely to bring him a little international love.

A Somewhat Gentle Man (“En ganske snill mann”) reteams Moland with Stellan Skarsgård who stars as the titular character except he’s not exactly “gentle” (at least his actions aren’t). Here’s what the official synopsis has to say:

Ulrik is a somewhat gentle man. He has no special wishes and makes no demands. He has killed some people and crippled a few. But this sort of stuff is part of the job when working in the criminal world.

Stellan Skarsgard will star in Norwegian helmer Hans Petter Moland's black comedy "Regnskap." He joins Norwegian actors Bjorn Floberg, Bjorn Sundquist and Aksel Hennie. The script is penned by Kim Fupz Aakeson, writer of Anette K. Olsen's Berlin Film Festival award-winning "Little Soldier." Story tells of a man set free from his twelve-year-long sentence in jail for killing his wife. He is left to decide whether to try reconcile with his family or seek revenge on those responsible for turning him in. Finn Gjerdrum and Stein B. Kvae will produce the $2.3 million budgeted film for Paradox. "Regnskap "starts filming next month and is scheduled to open in Norway in February 2010....

Stellan Skarsgard will star in Norwegian helmer Hans Petter Moland's black comedy "Regnskap." He joins Norwegian actors Bjorn Floberg, Bjorn Sundquist and Aksel Hennie. The script is penned by Kim Fupz Aakeson, writer of Anette K. Olsen's Berlin Film Festival award-winning "Little Soldier." Story tells of a man set free from his twelve-year-long sentence in jail for killing his wife. He is left to decide whether to try reconcile with his family or seek revenge on those responsible for turning him in. Finn Gjerdrum and Stein B. Kvae will produce the $2.3 million budgeted film for Paradox. "Regnskap "starts filming next month and is scheduled to open in Norway in February 2010....