Variety has been given irregular secure admission to to the trailer for Itonje Søimer Guttormsen’s feature debut “Gritt,” which has its world premiere at the Rotterdam Movie Competition on Feb. 2, and then goes straight to Göteborg, where it performs within the Dragon competition. Global gross sales are being handled by Mer Movie, its production company. It’s a long way the first Norwegian film ever to play in competition at Rotterdam, and the first Norwegian film to play there in any half for 17 years.
The film follows Gry-Jeanette – played by Birgitte Larsen – who left Norway with the dream of turning into an actress, 17 years ago. Now, having did no longer search out either reputation in Hollywood or notoriety in Berlin, she’s support, and calling herself Gritt. Whereas her mature pals from faculty maintain established successful careers on the Oslo theater circuit, Gritt is eager about staging a “manifestation”: a thorough collective ritual. But no one appears to care.
Larsen – who Guttormsen describes as “an clever observer with an excellent humorousness” – first portrayed Gritt in Guttormsen’s 2016 short film “Retrett.” Gritt has a “dream of a thorough and poetic life within the provider of art,” the creator-director says. “She is entertaining to sacrifice all the pieces for what she believes in. On anecdote of what does she want to lose? If she would no longer ‘manifest’, she is nothing. Gritt’s fervor and actions attract extra resistance than toughen, and she or he balances on an existential knife edge. Fortunately she is supplied with an surprisingly steady interior conviction, a type of naïve inventive obsession that retains her alive. The set there is braveness there is also hope.”
Guttormsen explains: “I would love to wretchedness our realizing of what it skill to be a successfully-adjusted citizen, and what we take into anecdote a functional life. Via a anxious lady who’s consistently misunderstood, treated with suspicion or pushed aside as inappropriate, I would love to highlight the suffocating prerequisites of normality.”
Gritt gives an more than just a few female feature mannequin to those typically seen on cloak, Guttormsen says. “There’s a lack of tales about lonesome female wolves with a burning desire to recount themselves, and I search for it as my job to make a contribution.”
Guttormsen describes the “manifesto” guiding her attain to filmmaking as “Extra belief, much less security!” She says: “I search for classical film production as a stable but runt Eden, and purpose to interrupt some borders and allow myself into the unknown where intuition and invention need to lead, and new self-discipline materials would possibly perhaps rise.” This leads her to present her actors a high level of belief in their interpretation of their roles. “The core of Gritt’s nature, her concerns and interior skill, both definite and adverse, is one thing I defend interior, that’s where I develop from. I in truth feel I do know her correct interior being, but I haven’t consistently obtained alter of how she’s going to act and react, and so I consistently give Birgitte Larsen a sizable amount of freedom to explore that after we develop the scenes,” she says.
The film’s producer is Maria Ekerhovd of Mer Movie, which is ready to release “Gritt” in Norway this year.
“Gritt” actor Birgitte Larsen with creator-director Itonje Søimer Guttormsen.
Courtesy of Ingrid Eggen
