Leiv Igor Devold’s debut feature Norwegian Dream has received the Screen International Best Pitch Award as one of the works in progress presented at this year’s Polish Days, the industry event for the Wroclaw-based New Horizons International Film Festival (July 21-31).
The €1m Norway-Poland-Germany co-production by Spaett Film, Solo Film and Riva Film, is a coming-of-age drama about a 19-year-old Polish immigrant Robert working at a fish factory in Norway and struggling with his feelings for a fellow colleague Ivar. When a strike breaks out in the factory those feelings and his loyalty to his fellow workers will be tested.
Norwegian Dream had been pitched as a project at the Polish Days in 2020 as well as at co-production markets in Haugesund and Cottbus before being presented as a work in progress at the Nordic Film Market in Göteborg last January.
In addition, footage from the film was shown as part of the First Cut+ programme of Karlovy Vary’s Eastern Promises Industry Days at the beginning of this month.
The film will now benefit from coverage on Screen throughout its life cycle, from production to its expected future debut at a film festival.
Leszek Dawid’s mountaineering drama Broad Peak, which won the first Screen Best Pitch Award award in 2019, will have its world premiere in the main competition of the Polish Feature Film Festival in Gdynia (September 12-17) before being released on Netflix later in the autumn.
Last year’s Screen Best Pitch winner Woman On The Roof by Anna Jadowska is also in competition at Gdynia.
The 2020 winner - Jakub Piatek’s debut feature Prime Time - premiered in the Sundance Film Festival in January 2021 before being released globally as a Netflix Original from June 2021.
Polish Days winners
Devold’s film was among eight works in progress presented to an audience of international sales agents, distributors and festival programmers.
These also included Piotr Stasik’s coming-of-age drama Film For Aliens about a 14-year-old YouTuber creating a message for aliens in the form of a film to help save the world.
The €805,500 project, produced by the Warsaw-based boutique company Telemark, won the No Problemo Music Award offering the use of any songs from the Audio Network music library alongside Olga Chajdas’ Grandpa, Let’s Go!.
The latter was one of 10 new feature film projects pitched at Polish Days.
Chajdas’ third feature after her award–winning debut Nina and Imago (currently in post-production) is a €1.74m family road movie produced by Gdansk-based FURIA Film and already has the Czech Republic’s Moloko Film onboard as a co-producer and Next Film in place as the Polish distributor.
Grandpa, Let’s Go! also won an inaugural post-production award sponsored by Fixafilm to cover the costs of image post-production services up to Zlotys.30,000
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