PRODUCTION Norway
Petter Næss and Per Fly on Maipo’s roster
by Annika Pham
21/11/2008 - Established Norwegian producer Dag Alveberg (Maipo Film ), longtime collaborator of Petter Næss (Elling [trailer]), has a new project with the director lined up for 2009. Before that, however, he will co-produce Per Fly’s new drama with Denmark’s Zentropa.
The Woman Who Dreamt About a Man (working title) – the new film by the director of the trilogy The Bench, Inheritance and Manslaughter [trailer] – will star Sonja Richter as a successful fashion photographer. Although happily married, every night she dreams of another man who is in a hotel room in Warsaw. One day, in a chance encounter she meets the man of her dream in Paris.
Zentropa’s Ib Tardini is producing with Alveberg and Maipo. The NOK 23m film was just awarded NOK1.175.000 in production support from the Norwegian Film Institute.
Maipo is also working on the financing of Næss’s new project, based on a book by Nordic Council Prize Literary winner Lars Saabye Christensen. “It will be about a family going to Thailand”, said Alveberg. “Half of the financing is in place. The plan is to start the shooting in the autumn 2009”.
Other Maipo projects planned for next year include a television series and a new low-budget film as part of its Maipo Minima strand, set up three years ago to nurture filmmakers by putting them at work on lighter and cheaper productions. The first Maipo Minima film, The Art of Negative Thinking [trailer], is coming out in France on November 26 (Little Stone Distribution).
