Headhunters producers Asle Vatn and Christian Fredrik Martin have ended their 18 years collaboration, with the latter remaining at the helm of the company. 

One of Norway’s most established companies, Friland has delivered many internationally acclaimed films since 2001, such as Morten Tyldum’s smash hit Headhunters, as well as Stefan Faldsbakken’s Uro, Sara Jonhsen’s Kissed by Winter, Upperdog, Erik Skjoldjærg’s Pioneer, and more recently Marius Holst’s Congo.

Katarina Launing’s dance film Battle was the first Norwegian film to launch globally on Netflix just a few months after the national release. 

 Speaking to nordicfilmandtvnews.com about his decision to split from his long time partner, Vatn said: “this has been a natural process for me. We have reached most of our goals at Friland, and both of us are proud of what we have achieved." Asked about his next step, Vatn said he is investigating various options but nothing concrete can be announced right now. 

Martin who remains at the head of Friland, said he recently hired young producer Marte Hansen, and will steer his company in a slightly new direction. ”The business is facing a rapidly changing marketplace,” he noted. “This asks for both new strategies and breaking new ground. Friland has mainly focused on feature films until now, which will still remain an important part of our activity. But our editorial line will be much more diversified, with a bigger focus on high quality TV series productions, as well as family and children’s content.  Battle became the first “Netflix original” feature from Scandinavia and represents a fundamental change in Friland’s way of thinking about distribution. I think we will see all kinds of different formulas when it comes to the financing and distribution of our content in the upcoming years.”

For the moment, Martin is producing together with Norway’s Storm Film the live action family film Three Wishes For Cinderella (Tre nøtter til Askepott), a remake based on the Czech Christmas classic. The project is written by Kamilla Krogsveen and Karsten Fullu and will be the feature film debut of established TV drama and theatre director Cecilie Mosli. The film is set to go into production next year.