Beginning Saturday, September 21, 2024, Norway House will host a watch party at our Sundet Family Aula for one of Norway’s most beloved films, continuing every third Saturday of the month. Whether you’re a film buff, looking for another fun way to learn Norwegian, or just looking to have a great time watching movies with friends, Norway House has saved a seat just for you!
Our inaugural film will be Victoria (2013), a Norwegian drama film based on the novel Viktoria by Knut Hamsun—Nobel laureate in Literature for 1920, and directed by Torun Lian, with Jakob Oftebro, Iben Akerlie and Bill Skarsgård in the starring roles. Dubbed "the original love story" by the Norwegian Film Institute, it has everything that a filmmaker and a cinema audience could wish for: young love, class differences, success against all odds, costumes, glorious settings and heartbreaking tragedy.
Concessions will be available with FREE entry and No RSVP required.
Join us as we kick-off Lørdagsfilm: Norwegian Film Saturday at Norway House!
About: Victoria
Nobel Prize winner Knut Hamsun's immortal novel Victoria from 1898 was the original love story. It has everything that a filmmaker and a cinema audience could wish for: young love, class differences, success against all odds, costumes, glorious settings and, in the end, heartbreaking tragedy when Victoria confesses her true love to the man she didn't get and should have had before she succumbs to tuberculosis.
Though titled Victoria, the protagonist is Johannes, the miller's son. He is a boy who wants to work in a match factory because he could then get sulphur on his hands so that nobody would dare to shake hands with him. Later, as a man, he spends his nights writing epic poetry, capping a productive session with loud singing that wakes his neighbours. Johannes is proud to know the stones and the streams; he looks after birds and trees and scares himself into believing there is an ogre in a nearby cave. As a child he befriends Ditlef and Victoria, son and daughter of the socially aristocratic but economically destitute Lord of the village. He loves Victoria the way a tree loves the sun eternally, its branches outstretched not to touch but to bask in the radiance of the light. Victoria, however, is forced into marriage with Otto, an upstart aristocrat with a poorer lineage but a great deal of money.
Victoria is a short novel, but its themes are large. As much as the novel is a story of obsession and possession thwarted, it also manages to include much on the then-relevant issue of love between different classes. Johannes, though he becomes a celebrated poet, will never be the social equal of Victoria, and both know it. This adds poignancy to their love, and a valuable (to the characters') sense that they will never truly be together. The characters are written sharply, which renders their love quarrels painful to the reader. It is clear from the first few pages that happiness is not possible for either of them. Victoria muses at one stage that Johannes must be doing alright because he mentions that he is dealing with only 'the small sorrows'. That she expects a person must always live with any sorrow at all suggests much about her character, and that Johannes is, in his way, content with these 'small' sorrows suggests just as much about his. They are lovers in a sense, but lovers who can never consummate physically what they so fervently express in secret to themselves.
— The Norwegian Film Institute
About: Director Torun Lian
Torun Lian (b. 1956) is an author, screenwriter and director. She started her career at the National Theatre in Oslo, working in costumes and scenography. While working at the theatre she wrote three plays, which were later published in book-form. After this debut as a dramatist, Lian also started writing for the screen, and struck a cord in the audience with the television series Frida (1990), based on Lian's own book of the same title. The initial success resulted in a second serie, Frida og det urolige hjertet (1991), and a feature film; the award-winning Frida - Straight from the Heart (1991), directed by Berit Nesheim.
Lian made her directorial debut with the short There Is Someone Even Smaller Than Anna in 1991, while still continuing her writing. In 1998 she made her feature film debut with the youth drama Only Clouds Move the Stars, based on her own novel of the same title from 1994, which she had also adapted for the screen. The film received several awards - including Special Mention by the The Crystal Bear Jury at the Berlin International Film Festival, The Norwegian Film Critics Award and the Norwegian National Film Award Amanda for Best Theatrical Film - and was screened at numerous international film festivals. Her second feature film, The Color of Milk, was also an adaptation from one of her own novels, and also became a critically acclaimed and award-winning hit.
Lian has also written, or co-written, several screenplays for other films, such as Falling Sky (2002) and Vegas (2009). In addition to writing and directing, Lian also served as commissioning consultant for feature films at the Norwegian Film Institute from 2004 to 2006.
— The Norwegian Film Institute