20/02/2017 - Among other projects, the NFI is backing Jens Jonsson’s biopic of Sonja Wigert, the Norwegian actress who was a spy – for both sides – during World War II

When World War II broke out, Norwegian actress Sonja Wigert was living in Stockholm – already working for the Swedish intelligence, she subsequently met Nazi leader Josef Terboven, who recruited her as a German spy. Her father was imprisoned in Oslo, and when she had an affair with a Hungarian diplomat, her double life as a Swedish and German agent became increasingly difficult.

Award-winning Swedish director Jens Jonsson’s The Spy – a biopic of Wigert – is one of the four films included in the Norwegian Film Institute’s new €3.9 million support package. From a script by Harald Rosenløw Eeg, based on Norwegian author Iselin Theien’s Wigert biography, the project will be staged by Karin Julsrud and Turid Øversveen for 4½ Fiksjon.

Norwegian director Mikkel Brænne Sandemose has already revived Norwegian 19^th-century folklore character the Ash Lad in his family feature The Ash Lad: In the Hall of the Mountain King [+see also:
trailer
interview: Eili Harboe
film profile], which will be released in September. Now he has been backed for the sequel, The Ash Lad: In Search of the Golden Castle, a Synnøve Hørsdal and Åshild Ramborg production for Maipo, which sends our hero on a mission to find a famous castle made of gold, together with Princess Kristin.

Following up on her The Christmas King: In Full Armour [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2015), Norwegian director Thale Persen’s The Dragon’s Heart tells the story of Gina, who leaves her orphanage to celebrate Christmas in freedom and finds a new friend, a dragon as lonely as she is. Frederick Howard and Lars Andreas Hellebust will produce for Storm Films.

Finally, the institute has also chipped in for Norwegian director Karoline Grindaker’s documentary Ervin, a portrait of a five-year-old autistic boy.