The Norwegian Film Fund has granted $1.6 million (Euros 1.2 m) production support for Norwegian director Eva Isaksen's House Of The Mad, partly from Signature W, a new subsidising scheme aimed at improving the working situation of women film-makers.

'We share the concern expressed in a recent report that the Norwegian film industry does not fully exploit the potential of women in film,' said managing director Stein Slyngstad, of the Norwegian Film Fund. To benefit from the programme, at least two of the projects' key staff (writer, director, producer) have to be female.

Isaksen (Death at Oslo Central, Mother's Elling) has worked with scriptwriter Ase Vikene and author Karin Fossum on several feature and television films. House Of The Mad follows a woman from when she is committed to a psychatric hospital until she is let out to face the real world again. Hilde Berg and Bent Rognlien will produce on a $3.7 million (Euros 2.7m) budget for Norsk filmproduksjon: the film will be ready for autumn 2008.

As part of a $3.3 million (Euros 2.5m) spending spree, the fund allocated $1.7 million (Euros 1.3m) for Annette Sjursen's Pax, a $2.9 million (Euros 2.2m) multiple-love-story movie following seven people apparently approaching disaster, as one of the engines on their Copenhagen-Oslo flight explodes. Sjursen and Lars Saabye Christensen scripted, as they did for My Jealous Barber, and Finn Gjerdrum and Stein B Kvae will realise the project for Paradox with an expected 2009 delivery.

The Norwegian Film Fund also contributed minor finance for US-Norwegian director John Sullivan's Porn Star', a documentary depicting the work of Norwegian hardcore actor/director/producer Thomas Rocco Hansen and his girlfriend, Vanessa, and for Tommy Wirkola's Tarantino spoof, Kill Bukljo - The Movie.

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