PRODUCTION Norway
Newcomer to become first detective with Down's Syndrome – and Eurimages support
by Jorn Rossing Jensen
26/06/2012 - A 32–year-old employee at the internal message service of the Sandefjord City Hall, who has never been in a film previously, will play the lead in Norwegian director Bård Breien’s €3.2 million The Down's Detective, which will start principal photography on locations in Prague from late August. Svein Andre Hofsø has performed in his sister’s home videos; he has always wanted to become an actor, and after he was selected for the role after several auditions he has lost ten kilos and learned how to dance.
At the same time, Breien’s follow-up to his award-winning feature debut, The Art of Negative Thinking [trailer] (2006), which won international awards both in Germany and the Czech Republic, has received €320,000 financing from Eurimages, the European Council’s co-production fund. The Norwegian Film Institute has chipped in €1.2 million for the project.
Scripted by Breien and Eske Troelstrup, The Down's Detective is the story of a 28-year-old private investigator, Robert Bogerud, who is short of assignments – he suffers from Down's Syndrome. But when the famous skater Olav Stjernen disappears, and his family needs a harmless PI to calm down a wealthy and senile grandmother, he is on the job. And even his father, a real detective who is also on the case, realises that Robert has an extraordinary aptitude for police work.
Staged by Norwegian producers Asle Vatn and Pål Røed for Friland, recently credited for such films as Headhunters [trailer], Sons of Norway [trailer] and Upperdog [trailer], Breien’s second feature is co-produced by Bo Ehrhardt, of Denmark’s Nimbus Film ApS and Pavel Bercik, of the Czech Republic’s Evolution. Nordisk Film handles local release, and TrustNordisk international sales.
