Avalon team goes Under The Pyramid

Erika Wasserman of Stockholm-based Idyll/Fasad is here in Berlin with festival hit Avalon, is also working on director Axel Petersen’s next film, Under The Pyramid.

The film will shoot in January 2013, set in Los Angeles, Israel, Egypt and Sweden.

“It’s about art, commerce and politics,” Wasserman tells Screen. The story is about a woman trying to find her absent father, who is an art gallery owner.

The biggest film of Idyll & Fasad’s slate is new feature, an adaptation of The Hunters of Karinhall, Carl H. Wijkmark’s cult hit novel. “It’s a Nazi orgy film,” the producer says. “It will have an international cast, about world leaders meeting and having erotic escapist adventures. It will create a lot of stir.” (Karinhall was the name of Goring’s country house.)

The company (which includes her producing partner Jesper Kurlandsky) is now in post on the second feature from Fredrik Wenzel & Henrik Hellström, who directed 2009 Forum selection Burrowing. The new film, Hollows, shot late in 2011 in Norway in Sweden, about an older woman living in the fjords dealing with her niece going through a bad breakup. “It’s about intimacy and independence,” Wasserman says. The lead actress is Eva Britte Strandberg (Godard’s Masculin Féminin, Love 65). “Burrowing had a very strong atmospheric connectiona and this film has strong visual language as well, but it’s a bigger film and more accessible.”

Idyll & Fasad also has Blondie in post, about three sisters who attend their mother’s 70th birthday celebrations. (TrustNordisk is also selling that).

She is also a co-producer on Lance Edmands’ Maine-set Bluebird, shooting now.

“We’ve had great support from The Swedish Film Institute, Swedish TV, Film I Vast, CanalPlus, to make these strong auteur driven films. Now we’re interesting in reaching a wider audience with our new films.”

Nordisk releases Avalon in Sweden on Feb 24 (TrustNordisk handles sales).