Two years after launch, Norway’s boutique production outlet Staer Film headed by Elisa Fernanda Pirir, is ramping up its activities by venturing into distribution and bigger budget movies.
With a focus on visionary new and established auteurs, regional productions and international collaborations, the new Tromsö-based distribution outfit led by Eleanor Debreu will offer a home for Stær’s most artistically challenging co-productions, that will benefit from tailor-made innovative marketing strategies.
The first release this fall will be Swedish pic “A Sweetness from Nowhere” by Ester Martin Bergmark, multi-awarded for his debut “Everything Must Go.” First clips of the playful exploration of lust via documentary essay, poetic facts, and evocative fable will be unveiled Jan. 31 at Göteborg’s Nordic Film Market works in progress, by Swedish producer Anna-Maria Kantarius of Garagefilm.
Next up are two titles partially shot in Northern Norway, that could find a home at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival.
“Wake of Umbra” (“Estela de Sombra”) by prominent Mexican helmer Carlos Reygadas (Cannes jury prize-winner for “Silent Light,” best director for “Post Tenebras Lux”) is “a sensitive and typically aesthetically driven Reygadas movie” according to Pirir, who kept story details under wraps. The Mexican-Polish-Norwegian collaboration is lead-produced by Cristina Velasco at Paloma Negra Films.
“The Visitor,” by Lithuanian rising talent Vytautas Katkus, scooped the Cannes Critics’ Week’s Next Step Prize in 2022 and Copro Development Award in Les Arcs, France. The story turns on Danielius (30) who tries to reconnect with an old acquaintance as he returns to his hometown in the wake of his dad’s death. Lithuania’s M-Films is producing with Stær Film and Sweden’s Garagefilm. “The sound, the material is beautiful,” said Pirir who wishes more aesthetically-driven features such as “The Visitor” were produced in Norway.
In the niche Norwegian cinema market where non-European and non-U.S. foreign titles account for around 3% of total attendance, Pirir said she and Debreu will offer passion and guerrilla solutions for each title to find its audience.
Meanwhile, two of Stær Film’s own productions are being showcased this week at Göteborg’s Nordic Film Market.
Like There is No Tomorrow
Courtesy of Stce Film
In the market’s Discovery Co-production Platform, “Like There is No Tomorrow” is Stær Film’s most ambitious feature to date, with an estimated budget of €4 million ($4.1 million). Rising talent Tess Quatri who graduated from the Norwegian Film School, will bring to the screens a personal story, set in the Canary Islands. In it, the young mother Frida (30) struggles to raise her daughter on a Canary Island packed with Scandinavian tourists. But tension escalates when soaring rents push them onto the streets and her daughter risks getting lost in the island’s wild parties.
“I grew up in one of these islands,” said the young director during her pitch Jan 30. to a packed audience of industry professionals in Göteborg. “I drunk cocktails at 14, learned that men on holiday really don’t care about consequences. I learned that my mum was in constant panic of other people’s destruction, destructing me in my teens….I learned about care. To care about the earth beneath our feet and about others….I learned that the ultimate care is motherhood, and that we all need to be mothers, because I want there to be a tomorrow.”
Pirir is looking for seasoned co-production partners in Sweden and Spain for the project.
In the Works in Progress, “Árru” is a musical film about a young reindeer herder Maia, as she fights to protect ancestral grazing lands from a looming mining project. “The return of a Sámi leader help set up a resistance camp, but his comeback sparks life in a painful way,” says the logline.
Making her directorial debut is Elle Sofe Sara, an award-winning dance and joik (Sámi traditional song) performer, who teamed up with seasoned scriptwriter Johan Fasting (“Power Play”, “Ninjababy”) and editor Michael Leszczylowski (“War Sailor”, HBO’s “Gösta”).
The score from electronic artist Kaada, written with joik artist Sara Marielle Gaup, Simon Issát Marainen and Sara “will challenge the joik art to something unique, never seen before”, said the producer. Expanding on the musical mix in the narrative, Pirir said “joik is used by the main character as an alternative way of expressing her feelings, when she’s losing her words.” World sales are under negotiation.