Rising Norwegian writer-director Anders Emblem whose “A Human Position” bowed at the Tromsø, Rotterdam and San Sebastian festivals in 2022 before landing a global deal with Mubi, has teamed up again with up-and-coming actor Amalie Ibsen Jensen for his third pic, “Also a Life.”
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The Norwegian feature in development to be pitched at the Nordic Co-Production Market Aug. 21, in Haugesund, Norway, is being produced by the talent-driven Elisa Fernanda Pirir (Stær Film) , associated to award-winning international helmers including Luis Alejandro Yero (“Calls from Moscow”), Laura Mora (“The Kings of the World”), Nabil Ayouch (“ Everybody Loves Touda” ), and Ernst de Geer (“The Hypnosis”).
The Guatemala-born Norwegian producer said she first set eyes on Emblem’s work when his sophomore pic “A Human Position” (billed by ‘The Guardian’ reviewer Peter Bradshaw as an “elegant, beautifully-framed drama with Murakami-esque cat cameos”) opened the Tromsø International Film Festival 2022.
Pirir said: “I was amazed by such a refreshing new Nordic voice; “A Human Position” was both moving, funny and cleverly constructed. Since then Anders and I have become good friends. We’re both cinephiles and cat lovers!
Equally impressed by Emblem’s earlier works is Norwegian top arthouse distributor Svend Jensen of Arthaus, who has pre-bought “Also a Life,” a stamp of approval from the Cannes winning pics collector who rarely bets on newcomers.
“I have been following Anders and his work since his first feature ‘Hurry Slowly’ which premiered in 2018 at the exclusive film festival Nara, run by Naomi Kawase in Japan,” Jensen said. “Anders is a unique filmmaker with a distinct film language. Yes, his films are moving quite slowly, but with great intensity, and always with a heartfelt care for the persons on the screen. ‘A Human Position’ followed up his feature debut with another story of normal people struggling with every-day problems, but again at a wonderful poetic level. I am very much looking forward to experiencing how he will pull off the powerful story of ‘Also a Life,”’ he said.
Set in a care home for kids and youth with intellectual disabilities, the hybrid pic follows a team of social workers in their daily routines and interactions with the youths. When a young resident reveals she is pregnant and wants to keep the baby, the head therapist Eivor (Amalie Ibsen Jensen) has to take difficult decisions.
Emblem who worked nearly a decade in various care homes before turning to filmmaking, said he’s always been fascinated by that “somehow invisible, parallel society, filled with laughter and joy, but also sadness, illness, and people in very difficult situations.”
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“It all creates an otherness that seems perfect for films, both visually, with how this world looks like, how people interact and behave, how humour is different and how it sounds. The starting point for this film was for sure to try to capture this world, how I know and remember it, and opening it up for viewers to peek inside, see for themselves.”
Keen also “to poke at uncomfortable truths in our society in a slightly understated way,” Emblem said he will nevertheless try to keep some major questions open for the viewers to reflect upon, such as “what it means to be a human today and who is allowed to be.”
So far, his research has focused on interviewing care homes staff and government agencies connected to those homes “to understand operational routines when special situations arise,” as well as social workers, parents and siblings “as this film mostly takes on those perspectives,” he said.
Flirting with documentary techniques, Emblem will use mostly real kids and youth with intellectual disabilities as “they are the ones we have to listen to, to understand and to adapt to”, while Ibsen Jensen will play the lead. “She knows how a character carries a burden and how to subtly show how there is something more inside,” Emblem said.
At the Haugesund Nordic Co-production Market, the 2023 Cannes Producer-on-the-Move Pirir will be looking for co-financing and co-producers, with a plan to start filming in 2025.
Other projects on her slate include the Sami musical “Árru” by debut director Elle Sofe Sara (“Sami Boy”), and a string of co-productions including the essay pic “A Sweetness from Nowhere” by Swede Ester Martin Bergsmark (“Something Must Break”), “Wake of Umbra” by Cannes-winning Mexican helmer Carlos Reygadas (“Post Tenebras Lux”), “Where the Journey Begins” by Colombian-Canadian Juan Andrés Arango García (“La Playa DC”), and “The Visitor” by rising Lithuanian talent Vytautas Katkus.
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