Filming has started October 5 on the ambitious project No. 24 from commercially-oriented producers Kristian Sinkerud, Terje Strømstad and Espen Horn of Motion Blur, credited most recently for the Netflix hit Troll.

The Motion Blur production trio have teamed up for the second time with Norwegian mogul John M. Jacobsen (Max Manus, The Heavy Water War), after their joint collaboration on Espen Sandberg’s Amundsen.

Speaking to us, Horn said: “This is our second WW2 film [after Harald Zwart’s The 12th Man] and we are thrilled to do it with John Andreas Andersen. We have started the principal photography and are excited for a theatrical release in the fall 2024.”

The script for No. 24, written by seasoned writer Erlend Loe from an original script by Espen von Ibenfeldt, is based on unique source material, notably from the Sønsteby Foundation.

The film tells the inspiring true story of the young accountant Gunnar Sønsteby who played a key role in the resistance movement in Norway during WW2 and also contributed to peace efforts.

We follow the 22-year-old Gunnar, who immediately offers his services to the resistance after the German attack on Norway on 9 April 1940. Thanks to his unique talent for leadership, Gunnar - known as ‘The Chin’ and ‘No. 24’- soon took the head of the so-called "Oslo gang" of which another heroic figure Max Manus, was part. Together, the brave men carried out countless acts of sabotage during WW2.

Rising acting talent Sjur Vatne Brean, best known on screen for his part in NRK’s hit series Rod Knock (Rådebank), but also for the film Three Wishes from Cinderella, is making his debut in a leading role.

Director John Andreas Andersen said about the epic project: “Being allowed to make a film about the national hero Gunnar Sønsteby is a job I take on with great humility, while at the same time it's a story I can’t wait to tell. Sønsteby has an exciting and complex history and was faced with crazy challenges that we can hardly relate to, but which nevertheless feel incredibly relevant to our time,” he observed.

According to Horn, filming will last for approximately 35-40 days and end in Rjukan where the Norwegian war hero was born. “We have a fantastic relationship and the Rjukan municipality, Rjukan Næringsutvikling and Telemark Utviklingsfond, and the local community which helped us shoot in the town of Rjukan.”

The mega-project backed by the Norwegian Film Institute will be released late 2024 by Motion Blur’s partners and co-owners SF Studios.

Motion Blur will be handling world sales themselves.

No. 24 is the latest of a series of Norwegian WW2 dramas offered to Norwegian-and international- audiences after Gunnar Vikene’s War Sailor and Erik Skjoldbjærg’s Narvik-Hitler’s First Defeat, watched respectively by over 405,000 and 528,000 people in Norwegian cinemas.