Skarsgård and Ganz go to Norway to meet Moland's Prize Idiot

by Jorn Rossing Jensen

06/02/2013 - Norwegian director Hans Petter Moland has assembled an international cast including Swedish actors Stellan Skarsgård (photo), Peter Andersson, German actor Bruno Ganz and Norwegian actor Pål Sverre Hagen for his seventh feature, The Prize Idiot, currently shooting on locations in Valdres between Bergen and Oslo, later to continue in Oslo. Nordisk Film Distribusjon will release domestically next winter; Denmark’s TrustNordisk handles international sales.

Moland, whose latest film A Somewhat Gentle Man [trailer, film focus] (2010) won the Audience Award at the Berlinale and an Amanda – Norway’s national film prize – for Skarsgård in the lead - has reunited with Danish Somewhat Gentle scriptwriter Kim Fupz Aakeson for his €4.2 million project, which is realised by Norwegian producers Finn Gjerdrum and Stein B Kvae, for Paradox Film.

The Prize Idiot follows 45-year-old Nils, married to Gudrun – their son Ingvar has just started studies in Oslo. Nils is a snow plow driver, responsible for keeping the countyroad over Valdresflyasnow-free in the winter, and he was just selected Citizen of the Year at Beito. He is a happy man, until he receives a telephone call: his son has died from an overdose. Suddenly, he finds himself in the middle of a war between drug syndicates.

Skarsgård, who has acted in more than 80 films besides being attached to Stockholm’s Royal Dramaten Theatre for 16 years, also performed in Moland’s Aberdeen (2000) and Zero Kelvin (1995). Ganz (The Baader Meinhof Complex [trailer]) will shortly be seen in Michael Kohlhaas. Andersson, who was in the Millennium trilogy, most recently performed in Hamilton – In the Interest of the Nation, while Hagen had the lead in Kon-Tiki [trailer].