{"id":15368,"date":"2026-02-16T17:34:55","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T17:34:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/15368\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T17:34:55","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T17:34:55","slug":"director-daniel-fahre-unpicks-haugesund-opener-battle-of-oslo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/15368\/","title":{"rendered":"Director Daniel Fahre Unpicks Haugesund Opener ‘Battle of Oslo’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThis year\u2019s opening film of the Norwegian International Film Festival Haugesund <\/a>might be about the \u201cBattle of Oslo<\/a>\u201d \u2013 or rather,\u00a0the sinking of German cruiser Bl\u00fccher\u00a0back in 1940 \u2013 but it has become \u201cunpleasantly relevant,\u201d says director Daniel Fahre.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen they talk about foreign ships [showing up] in the Norwegian fjords, it doesn\u2019t feel like a fairy tale,\u201d\u00a0he notes,\u00a0admitting that the dilemmas voiced in the film start to sound very familiar again.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLots of civilians at Oscarsborg [fortress] were trapped in the shelters. When we shot those scenes, we had little children as extras, pretending they were afraid. I had tears in my eyes. I knew they were pretending \u2013 I also knew that right now, there are other children terrified of war somewhere in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe adds: \u201cThere\u2019ve been many war films, but we need to remember our history. Especially when it tells us about the moments right before the war started.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe events at Oscarsborg, which allowed the Norwegian king to escape, preceded German occupation of Norway<\/a> that ultimately went on for five years. The sinking of Bl\u00fccher, under the leadership of Colonel Birger Eriksen, \u201cis one of the most famous events in our history. Some people are calling it the single most important event during the Second World War in Norway,\u201d notes Fahre. Which also posed a significant challenge: how to portray something Norwegians already know so well?<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe kept it quite accurate, also because it\u2019s such a thrilling story. But we had to look for its emotional side, because there\u2019s no mention of that in military reports. I am sure Colonel Eriksen had doubts, that he was afraid. But nobody wrote about it. I wanted to follow the facts and see what was hiding behind them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tFahre\u2019s intention was to\u00a0\u201cfigure out who this man was and why he did what he did.\u201d It was Eriksen who ordered the fortress to open fire on the German invaders.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe was under enormous pressure and nobody could help him out. Now, everyone calls him a hero. But when you see him standing there, watching a ship sink and hundreds of soldiers dying\u2026 He said this was the hardest part: seeing the consequences of what he\u2019s done.\u201d Right after the attack and also much later, with the film being set in 1940 and in 1946, Eriksen\u2019s choices came under scrutiny.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cA lot of things happened in Norway after the war. We had to process everything, find the good guys and the bad guys. Colonel Eriksen was summoned by a commission and he had to explain why he surrendered the fortress after 10 hours. I felt it was really unfair. After all, he was under a bombing attack,\u201d says Fahre.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe became this political figure after the war and some people wanted to bring him down.\u00a0I don\u2019t think he felt victorious at that moment [of the sinking]. I feel sorry for him. There is this scene of him sitting on a bench, all alone, and I\u2019d like to sit right next to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe found his Colonel in Bj\u00f8rn Sundquist, known for \u201cHere Is Harold,\u201d \u201cHandling the Undead\u201d and \u201cprobably the most famous actor in Norway.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe\u2019s a true legend. I was so happy he came on board, because despite Eriksen\u2019s military facade, you can always see something in his eyes. Bj\u00f8rn lets the audience in, even though they don\u2019t know what this man is thinking. There was no other actor I wanted for this,\u201d admits Fahre, opening up about his protagonist. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNorway hadn\u2019t been at war for 120 years and he had no standing orders from the government. Eriksen didn\u2019t know if these ships were German or British. He didn\u2019t know anything and put his whole career on the line. It was the right decision, but he couldn\u2019t have known it back then.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHe says: \u201cEriksen was really close to retirement. He was an elderly officer. That\u2019s so interesting, because many war movies are about younger soldiers. All this life experience allowed him to handle that situation better than any officer in his twenties. That\u2019s something we should think about because older people are often removed from professional settings.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was crucial to underline that \u201cwar isn\u2019t beautiful; it\u2019s gruesome and unpleasant.\u201d\u00a0At the same time, always staying close to the people right in the middle of it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMy last TV show, \u2018R\u00e5debank,\u2019 was about love, sorrow and loss. I really like intimate stories.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was fun to combine these two fascinations this time, because I like making films on that scale, but my interest is always with human drama,\u201d says Fahre. \u201cWhen you are depicting a big event, it would be tempting to follow multiple perspectives, but it was really important to stay close to Eriksen at all times. We only see what he sees.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhich, especially at night, is not an awful lot. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c\u2018Jaws\u2019 was a bit of an inspiration, because you don\u2019t see the shark. It\u2019s the same in this film. There\u2019s a threat coming, and you know it, but it\u2019s so dark and foggy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t1985 epic \u201cCome and See\u201d by\u00a0Elem Klimov\u00a0was also on Fahre\u2019s mind, as well as Bergman\u2019s \u201cShame.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe only war movie he\u2019s ever made. There\u2019s a scene when this couple\u2019s house is bombed, and it really sums up that experience \u2013 you just grab onto the people you love. We actually have a tribute to that very shot in the film. These are two examples of films that depict\u00a0big events and war, but from a more character-driven perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBattle of Oslo\u201d was produced by Tom Marius Kittilsen and Knut Inge Solbu for Fenomen Studios AS. Global Constellation<\/a> handles sales, while Ymer Media distributes locally.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\u2018The Battle of Oslo\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLillian Julsvik\/Ymer Media<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This year\u2019s opening film of the Norwegian International Film Festival Haugesund might be about the \u201cBattle of Oslo\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[85],"tags":[11387,6607,11388,157,11389,156],"class_list":["post-15368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oslo","tag-battle-of-oslo","tag-global-constellation","tag-haugesund-film-festival","tag-norway","tag-norwegian-international-film-festival","tag-oslo"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}