Lewis and Gallo were recently in Stockholm to record the voices for their respective characters Nina and Roger, heroes of Saleh's futuristic animated film, a scary movie mixing the worlds of Hitchcock and Roman Polanski's with hints of humour. The story based on an original script by Saleh, Stig Larsson and Fredrik Edin, is set in a terrifying Europe, running out of oil, where all underground railways have been connected, creating a gigantic underneath web. Roger -who has discovered that his life is controlled in every detail, tries to break free. Super-model Nina is going to help him.
Other voice actors include Germany's Udo Kier and Sweden's Stellan Skarsgård, Alexander Skarsgård, Sofia Helin, Fares Fares and Goran Marjanovic.
Kristina Åberg, producer of the film and co-founder of Atmo told Nordisk Film & TV Fond: "Juliette Lewis was very impressed by the style of our animation work and by the other actors in the casting." For Åberg, the choice of the English language was obvious because that is the common language in the futuristic Europe described in the film.
Atmo's first feature length animated film, uses an innovative digital technique based on Adobe After Effects. The project has been four years in development and is now finally hitting the animation stage, after works on the design, stills photography, and background. The SEK32m film is produced by Atmo in co-production with Zentropa (Denmark), Tordenfilm (Norway), SVT and Film i Väst, with support from the Swedish and Danish film institutes, the Norwegian Film Fund, MEDIA Plus, Nordisk Film & TV Fond and Eurimages. Sales are handled by Trust/Nordisk and Sandrew Metronome will coordinate domestic distribution in the spring 2009.
The eight year-old company Atmo which has built its fame on quality documentary films by co-founding member Erik Gandini (Surplus-Terrorized Into Being Consumers), is also working on the editing of his new documentary Italy, Year Zero. "It's the fascinating story of Italy's ‘videocracy', in the sense that around 85% of Italians get their news only from television," explains Åberg. It's about the growing power of television." The SEK16m project made for the theatrical market first, was co-produced again by Zentropa, SVT, Film i Väst, the SFI, Nordisk Film & TV Fond, with co-financing from the BBC. The theatrical release is schedule from the autumn 2008.
"It's often in documentaries - when the focus is on personal stories - that we learn the truth of current situations and events. They're not just a cultural force for storytelling, they're also political truth."
Robert Redford - Speaking about documentaries at Sundance Film Festival 2008.