09/12/2011

One of the first Norwegian-German co-productions in 34 years, German director Georg Maas’s drama-thriller Two Lives, began principal photography on location in Bergen this week (December 6). Norwegian producer Axel Helgeland has worked with Mass for eight years to prepare the film, which will shoot in Norway until Christmas, then in Germany until January 31.

Scripted by Maas, with Ståle Stein Berg and Christoph Tölle, Two Lives is set shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall. A 45 year-old Norwegian-German woman, Katrine Evensen-Myrdal who's married and a successful photographer living in Norway, is summoned as a witness in a court case against the Norwegian state on behalf of the children of Norwegian mothers and Wehrmacht soldiers born during the Nazi occupation, 1940-1945.

After the war, many were sent to Germany, where they grew up in East German orphans’ homes. The STASI state police stole some of their identities to use them for spies planted in the West - Katrine has a Norwegian mother and a German soldier father, and she carries a dark secret from her past which is about to catch up with her. German actress Juliane Köhler (Downfall [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Bernd Eichinger
interview: Joachim Fest
interview: Oliver Hirschbiegel
film profile]) plays Katrine (Klara Menzel when she was young), in a cast with Sven Nordin, Julia Bache-Wiig, Rainer Bock and Liv Ullmann, who returns to the big screen after four years (and Jesper Nielsen’s Through a Glass, Darkly [+see also:
trailer
film profile]). Two Lives will be domestically released late 2012 by Norsk Filmdistribusjon, in Germany by Farbfilm Verleih GmbH, and Germany’s Beta Cinema will handle international sales.

Helgeland packaged the €3.5 million feature for his own Helgeland Films AS with Denmark’s Per Holst, of Asta Film ApS, Germany’s Dieter Zeppenfeld and Rudi Teichmann of Zinnober Film and B&T-Filmproduktion; most recently Norway’s Film Fund FUZZ and Germany’s EvaApollo Media have been attached. Norway’s TV2 and Germany’s Degeto have local broadcast rights.