Norway's Oscar Search Narrows

The land of the midnight sun has narrowed down its contenders for this year's Oscar race. The three films that will be competing for the honor (to be announced on September 7th) are...

• The King’s Choice (Erik Poppe)
  A WW II drama about German soldiers invading Norway 
• The Pyromaniac (Erik Skjoldbjærg)
  Dramatic thriller about a southern village terrorized - premiering at TIFF
• Welcome to Norway (Rune Denstad Langlo)
  A comedy about a couple opening a home for refugees 

Poppe was submitted once before a dozen years back for Hawaii Oslo  and Oscar loves World War II but my guess is it's going to be Pyromaniac or Welcome to Norway. Skjoldbjaerg's history should help with the former since he had a finalist for submission with Pioneer a few years ago, though Norway opted for a lower profile submission, and he was also the co-writer of the internationally popular Norwegian hit Insomnia (1997) which was remade by Christopher Nolan in the Aughts. Welcome to Norway's topicality might help it take the honor, though. Both films won acting prizes at this week's Norwegian Oscars, "the Amandas" where last year's Oscar submission The Wave took the top prize of Best Norwegian Film.

Norway has been nominated five times (1957's Nine Lives, 1987's Pathfinder, 1996's Other Side of Sunday, 2001's Elling, and 2012's Kon-Tiki) but has yet to win the Oscar gold. 

THE AGE OF SHADOWS just announced as South Korea's choice, upsetting THE HANDMAIDENCurrent Foreign Oscar Predictions
10 Official Submissions Thus Far...

Chart 1 (Afghanistan - Finland) 
Submissions from Australia, Croatia, and Cuba

Chart 2 (France through Morocco) 
Submissions from Georgia & Germany

Chart 3 (Nepal through Vietnam) 
Submissions from Romania, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Switzerland, and Venezuela.

Interview: Director Roar Uthaug on Making the Disaster Film Feel Fresh in 'The Wave'

Director Roar Uthaug

Jose here. The fact that Norway’s Oscar submission this year is a disaster film, should be reason enough to warrant attention. It also happens that The Wave is quite a fun ride to sit through! Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, director Roar Uthaug, delivers a film that demands you get the largest bag of popcorn available, some candy and a giant soda. It’s a film meant to be enjoyed, something which Hollywood often forgets to provide when focusing on CGI extravaganzas that always put the effects before the people.

Uthaug’s film centers on a family led by sensitive geologist Kristian (Kristoffer Joner) and his pragmatic wife Idun (Ane Dahl Topr, the star of last year's Norwegian Oscar submission 1001 Grams), who are preparing to leave their charming little town, when everything that can possibly go wrong, does indeed go wrong. The issue in this case is disastrous landslide that causes a tsunami in the fjord! To say that Uthaug excels at creating tension and induces nail-biting (my cuticles resent him) would be an understatement. What is surprising is how fresh the film feels by the end. Uthaug was kind enough to answer some questions I had about his film.

Read the interview after the jump.

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