Olin’s thriller Safe House is produced by Fantefilm, Witzø’s comedy Everyone Hates Johan by Nordisk Film and Halle’s hybrid film We Are Here Now by Alternativet Produksjon.

The three feature projects that received a total of NOK 20.2 million (€2m) in production support from the Norwegian Film Institute, were competing against 31 feature film applicants.

“This round of support has given us the opportunity to support very distinctive and different projects. The [three films'] high quality and breath of expressions offer great prospects for Norwegian feature film in the future,” said the recently appointed feature film commissioner Anne Borgaard Sørensen.

With Safe House, the acclaimed documentary filmmaker Margreth Olin (Childhood, Doing Good) has teamed up with seasoned-writers Lars Gudmestad (Headhunters, Valkyrien) and Harald Rosenløw Eeg (The Quake, 1,000 Times Good Night). The film is set in 2013, in the Central-African Republic. While the streets of Bangui are ravaged by bloody fights, a provisional refugee camp intended for only a few thousands, is now housing more than 100,000 desperate souls. In the midst of this chaos, a Norwegian aid worker is struggling for her life and forced to assess how much a human life is actually worth.

The €3.7 million project is produced by Martin Sundland, Catrin Gundersen and Therese Bøhn for the genre-oriented production company Fante Film (The Wave, The Quake).

Everyone Hates Johan (Alle hater Johan) is the feature debut of Hallvar Witzø, Oscar-nominated for his short film Tuba Atlantic and Palme d’or nominated for Yes We Love (2014). The film penned by acclaimed writer/novelist Erend Loe (North, Struggle for Life) focus on Johan Grande’s struggle to belong and to be loved.

The €2.2m film is produced by Elisabeth Kvithyll of Nordisk Film Production. 

We Are Here Now (Vi er här nå) by Gothenburg’s Valand Academy graduate Mariken Halle, follows a group of babies and their parents over a year during their maternity leave. While the grown-ups discuss their lives and anxieties, the babies are there, present in every picture, witnessing.The experimental film is produced by the collective Alternativet. Another World Entertainment will release it domestically.