Early Norwegian film
Compared with Sweden and Denmark, which had early success producing large-scale feature films for international audiences, Norway came late to the movie business.
Little is known about the very first feature film produced in Norway. The film itself has been lost and the remaining source material is ambiguous. Produced by Hugo Hermansen between 1906 and 1908, it was titled Fiskerlivets farer ('Dangers of a Fisherman’s Life') or Et drama paa havet ('A Drama at Sea'), or both. The next effort did not appear until 1911, when Halfdan Nobel Roede produced Fattigdommens forbandelse ('The Curse of Poverty'), considered by many experts to be Norway’s first feature film. Roede’s works were inspired by the contemporary Danish erotic melodramas, and had no basis in Norwegian society. Not until 1920 did Norwegians begin to enjoy a sustained output of professionally-produced films. The character of Norwegian filmmaking changed that year, too, and Rasmus Breistein’s Fante-Anne ('Gypsy Anne') sparked what is now known as the 'national breakthrough'. While most earlier works had been set in the anonymity of the big city, directors now began to focus on Norwegian nature and the joys of the rustic outdoors.
The 1930s can be aptly termed the Golden Age of Norwegian film. The first 'talkie' was
Den store barnedåpen ('The Great Christening', 1931) by Tancred Ibsen, a descendant of Norwegian literary giants Henrik Ibsen and Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. The pre-war years were a time of growth and heightened popularity for the film industry, as filmmakers adapted well-known literary works to the screen and brought them to life using professional theatre actors.
During the Nazi occupation of Norway in World War II, film production as well as cinema programming were subject to German censorship. Nonetheless, audiences rushed to the cinema to enjoy any Nordic entertainment that passed the censor. Paradoxically, it was during this period that a national film directorate was established, giving Norway its first nationwide policies on film. Veteran director Leif Sinding was a driving force behind and chief administrator of the directorate. At the war’s end the directorate had amassed a fund of more than NOK 10 million (approximately EUR 1.25 million).
