The third Nordic Co-Production Forum will host 18 feature film projects with budgets between Euros 1.6m-10m. The event opens today at the Norwegian International Film Festival in Haugesund.

Total costs of the film which will be discussed by German, Canadian and Nordic producers amount to Euros 65m.

110 participants have registered for the event, including 75 producers and 60 buyers, will be discussing the catalogue during the two-day forum which is part of New Nordic Films, the festival's market section. Previous fora have focused on co-productions with the UK and Germany, then co-organised with Film London and Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein.

At the top end of the budget scale is Finnish film-maker Mika Kaurismäki's Euros 10m historical drama, Kristina, which is being packaged by Canadian producers Anna Stratton and Hank20Levine, for Triptych Media, Hank Levine Prods, Ginga Eleven Filmes and Marianna Films, will shoot after Kaurismäki's first Finnish film since the early 1990s, The House of Branching Love.

Norwegian director Erik Skjoldbjærg (An Enemy of the People) has two projects on the negotiating tables, a German Transcorda production of his Euros 6.9m Edvard Munch epic, and a 'conspiracy action thriller', Pioneer, from Norway's Friland. The Scream - The Story of Edvard Munch has Poland's EC1 Filmproduction and Norway's Nordisk Film on board.

The expeditionary force of RamBUk, a new division of Zentropa Entertainments specialising in films for young audiences, Danish producer Peter Engel has also two titles on the forum slate, both puppet stop-motion and animated productions, including Oliver Zahle's Holy Cow and Stefan Fjeldmark's Ghost Boy.

Norwegian veteran producer John M Jacobsen, whose Flmkameratene will shortly release Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg's Euros 6.1m World War II epic, Max Manus, has a stake in Swedish director Björn Runge's Second World War project, Simon, as well as touting his own production of Norwegian director Andre Øvredal's The Troll Hunter.

Topics