Trust Me is the most ambitious full-length documentary film for director Emil Trier, whose last work The Other Munch was directed with his brother Joachim Trier.

The film follows the fascinating rise-and-fall of one of Norway’s biggest fraudsters in recent years: Waleed Ahmed.

Aged 20, the young Norwegian/Pakistani entrepreneur rose to fame for supposedly inventing a solar-charger for mobile phones, which earned him the nickname of Norway’s Mark Zuckerberg.

Photographed with distinguished personalities, from Norway’s then Minister of Trade & Industry Trond Giske, Crown Prince Haakon, to CNN founder Ted Turner and former US secretary Kofi Annan, the young boy conned everyone - including established media outlets - before moving to the US where his scam game rapidly turned sour. After tricking a US entrepreneur over rights to a Justin Bieber Scandinavian Tour he didn’t own, he was arrested by the FBI and sentenced to an 11-year jail sentence for international fraud.

Through interviews, reconstructed scenes and archive material, Trier draws an absorbing portrait of a talented con artist.

The film was produced by Thomas Robsahm and Nicolai Moland for Motlys, in co-production with Zentropa Sweden, Snake Oil, co-financing from Fritt Ord, DR, Yle, SVT, support from the Norwegian Film Institute, the Swedish Film Institute and Nordisk Film & TV Fond.

Arthaus will handle the release in Norway and TriArt in Sweden. First Hand Films handles world sales.

What attracted you to Waleed's story in the first place?
Emil Trier: It all started when I read an article about this talented young entrepreneur [Waleed Ahmed], just out of high school. He had invented a solar charger for the iPhone. I remember very clearly the moment someone told me that the same person had been arrested by the FBI at San Francisco Airport, charged with selling rights he didn’t have to Justin Bieber's Scandinavian tour.

My producer Nicolai Moland and I then started researching, and quickly found out that there was a more complex story to be told, than just a tale of a single fraudster. It was a narrative that had a lot of elements crossing into universal youth themes.This person was very young, so themes like the desire to fit in, to be someone of importance, alienation, pressure and expectation, identity and dreams. It was a coming-of-age story, but with a destiny far from most youths.

How long have you worked on the film, and what where the biggest challenges about shooting between Norway and the US, especially with Covid-19?
E.T.: We have been working on the project for over five years. But a lot of work concentrated around research, making pilots for financing, pitching the project in forums and so on.

A big part of the story takes place in the US, and fortunately for us we got all the footage we needed from places like Atlanta, New Mexico, Oklahoma and L.A. just before Covid-19 hit. It would have been impossible to make this film right now.

Through your research to uncover the 'real' Waleed and scale of his fraud, what surprised you the most?
E.T.: What surprised me the most wasn't the fraudster himself, as going into the project, Waleed had already pleaded guilty to fraud, and was serving time in prison. It was other things, like the fact that he bought this solar charger on a Chinese website and it didn’t even work, and still was able to be called «The Mark Zuckerberg of Norway» in the news. That is something that puzzles me to this day. How it could go so far before being revealed?

Or when the film team meets some correctional officers in Cibola, New Mexico. Prison guards who worked close with Waleed in one of the prisons where he did time. They got really motivated by him, resulting in pitching business ideas to him and getting inspiring words on how not to waste life. I remember sitting there in this small town near Albuquerque, listening to them tell their story, and realising how big this whole story had become.

Waleed comes out as a rather gifted con man who understood how to surf on the political correctness of Norway's social democracy. As one Norwegian commentator said: with his Green Norway company, youth and minority ethnic background, he "ticked all the boxes" to become a national celebrity. How difficult was it to collect testimonies from so many personalities and individuals who trusted him, were used and abused by Waleed?
E.T.: Something we were faced with while doing research, is how difficult it was to get people in the film. Especially people who were lied too. The ambition of the project was to get all sides of the story and have the different perspectives represented. It was important to have the key characters of the story. Everyone from the former mayor of Oslo, Minister of trade, the FBI agent that arrested him, to people like his brothers and an old school teacher etc. We worked a long time to get everyone on board.

What views do you have of leading Norwegian media outlets who were easily conned by Waleed? In the film, the latter openly says that he made up his stories along the way, to get the press to 'buy' his story…
E.T.: Well, that is an interesting question. How could everyone be conned so easily? One of the journalists who actually revealed him, plainly states that Waleed told a fantastic tale that people really wanted to hear. He was the first journalist to write a critical article. People wanted this story to be true. Waleed became an important example, one whom everyone wanted to interview and bring forward, so the role of the media in this is also criticizable in a way. To turn it around, it's also interesting to ask how is it to be called Mark Zuckerberg of Norway, when you are just a teenager?

Can you detail your visual style that takes the viewer on a linear journey through Waleed Ahmed's extraordinary life story?
E.T.: This is indeed a story with larger-than-life themes and we had to mirror that in the cinematic style of the project. A lot of the narrative is being told through interviews, since much of the story is taking place in the past. These conversations in the film are essential, but for me it was important that the audience also «experience» part of the story, to let them take part in some of the moments. That motivated the visual style of using fictional, staged elements and scenes from his journey, being in LA, his first meeting with Innovation Norway or his High School years. We found a method, in combination with other visual elements like archive footage, photographs, classic observational camerawork, etc.

Waleed Ahmed will be freed February 4, 2022. Do you think he will come out a changed man? Will anyone be able to trust him in the future?
E.T.: I think Waleed Ahmed got a very long sentence for what he did and that he has had a long time to think about it. I hope he will do okay. The film followed him up this point, and only he can know what lies ahead.

What's next for you?
E.T.: I am developing a new project which combines fiction and documentary elements. It will require some travelling, so some of it has to wait until after the pandemic, but I’m looking forward to telling a new story soon.