Written by Lund, The Almost Man focuses on the 35 year-old Henrik (Henrik Rafaelsen - pictured) who doesn't want to live an adult life, and continues to party with his high-school friends and to live with his mother, until his girlfriend becomes pregnant and forces him to change.
For Ape & Bear founder and producer Ruben Thorkildsen the NFI's Nye veier was the perfect scheme for him and Lund (both 2008 graduates from the Norwegian film school in Lillehammer) to test new ways of filmmaking without too much pressure. Lund had had a golden opportunity to test his directing skills on the successful family film Twigson Ties the Knot produced by Paradox and was keen afterwards to remain low key with his second feature and to find his own voice on a smaller project." We decided to try out scenes and situations we liked without a set frame, defined characters or storyline. After six months of filming in total freedom, we ended up with 40 scenes. We realised that there was a pattern, common elements and we focused on getting them to work together to build a feature film", explains the director.
Thorkilsen is thrilled that The Almost Man is selected for Karlovy Vary."It was a big surprise. It's fantastic, especially for a film made in such a different way" he says. At press time the producer was negotiating world distribution with various sales agents.
Other projects on Ape & Björn's pipeline include Kampen, a TV series for children developed with NRK Super, based on Martin Lund's short film Home Game; the documentary Ting by visual artist Thomas Østbye (Imagining Emanuel) co-produced with the director's company Plymserafin, Teresa & her 8 minute old brother, the feature debut of TV director Geir Henning Hopland (Lilyhammer, Buzz Aldrin) co-produced with Paradox in Norway, and the minority co-production Palestine Stereo by Rashid Masharawi supported the NFI's Sør Fond.