Miss Julie producer plans incest drama

Maipo Films (the outfit behind Liv Ullmann’s Miss Julie) is pushing ahead with new incest drama Hjemlengsel and has attached newcomer Ine Wilman as star.

The film is to be directed by Anne Sewitsky [pictured] (the Sundance winning director of Happy Happy) and will be produced by Maipo CEO Synnøve Hørsdal.

The project is receiving support from the Norwegian Film Institute as part of the three picture slate deal that Sewitsky was awarded. The Institute is putting up round half of the film’s $4m budget.

Hjemlengsel is the story of an unhappily married dance instructor who discovers she has a brother. The problem arises when she falls in love with him.

“It has some of the same tone as Happy Happy,” Hørsdal said. 

Shooting on Miss Julie, which Liv Ullmann has said will be her final feature, finished on Friday. The film (sold by Wild Bunch) is likely to be ready for next year’s Berlinale. Miss Julie stars Jessica Chastain and Colin Farrell. Buyers are already buzzing around the project. Pretty Pictures will be handling France and Nordisk will release in Scandinavia but Hørsdal said there was no hurry to close deals before the film is complete.

“We do feel they (buyers) should see it,” Hørsdal said. “The performances we’ve seen thus far are really astonishing.”

The company is also hatching a big budget biopic of Norwegian figure skater turned Hollywood film star Sonja Henie. 

Henie became one of the richest women in the US in the late 1930s.

“It is telling the story of how you deal with success,” Hørsdal explained of the skater who won Olympic medals, starred in 10 Fox movies and was part of what became Holiday On Ice. Her career nose dived after the war, she had a turbulent private life and was criticised for her links to the Nazis but subsequently made a successful comeback.