24/03/2016 - The young Norwegian writer-director has a mystery-drama and an adventure-thriller on standby for this year’s audiences

Twenty-six-year-old Norwegian writer-director Henrik Martin Dahlsbakken, who made his first film when he was eight, will this year premiere two features in Norwegian cinemas: Late Summer [+see also:
trailer
interview: Henrik Martin Dahlsbakken
film profile] (on 17 June) and Cave [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (on 9 September).

Dahlsbakken, whose feature debut, Returning Home [+see also:
trailer
film profile], came out last year and won the top NDR Promotion Prize at the Nordic Film Days in Lübeck, recalled that as a child, "My best friend's father had a video camera, which we used to make slapstick comedies and horror thrillers. We took it very seriously and spent a lot of time working on it.”

At 19, he tried to get into the Norwegian Film School in Lillehammer but was denied a place, as he was “too young”. “In retrospect, I couldn't agree more,” added Dahlsbakken, who took courses in Media Science and Film History, before continuing as a self-taught filmmaker, “learning by doing”. 

He has always worked with his younger brother Oskar Dahlsbakken, who – having been an actor, set decorator, key grip, camera assistant and focus puller – is now a cinematographer and will also carry out this role on Late Summer, which stars Bente Børsum, Rolf Kristian Larsen, Heidi Toini and Christian Bujeau.

“It is a classical crime and no-way-out drama á trois about an elderly Norwegian woman who has shut herself away in the French countryside, when a young foreign couple on holiday suddenly intrudes on her isolated life. I was planning to shoot the film in Tuscany, until I found this perfect manoir in Loire-Atlantique – and as I don't speak French myself, it was interesting to say the least,” Dahlsbakken explained.

Late Summer was produced by FilmBros, the Hamar-based production company he runs with his brother, amongst other people, and it will be released domestically by Another World Entertainment, the local distributor that will also launch Cave.

“Cave is something different, an intense action-thriller about a group of former military elites who set out to explore an uncharted abyss, not knowing their worst nightmare is waiting for them deep beneath the ground. We filmed everything on location in Norway, except for some underwater scenes in Mexico – I think people will be utterly surprised when they see the result,” concluded the director, whose movie stars Heidi Toini, Mads Sjøgård Pettersen, Benjamin Helstad and Ingar Helge Gimle.