Norway

Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago between mainland Norway and the North Pole, provided one of the major production locations for Paramount/Skydance’s Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning and Warner Bros’ new Superman. Both big-budget features will be released worldwide this year, underlining Norway’s growing attraction to film­makers and overseas producers looking to capture breathtaking backdrops.

Superman director James Gunn, who filmed the opening sequences on Svalbard, told Norway’s local outlet Svalbardposten that he “wanted a place that was beautiful and felt like being in the middle of the Arctic”. He got that.

Over the past few years, Norway has attracted a slew of big-ticket productions and international co-productions with its combination of can-do attitude, a network of film commissions and a tax incentive that provides a 25% rebate on qualifying expenditure.

In the wake of Roar Uthaug’s Troll, which became one of Netflix’s most popular non-English-language films, the country set up the Eastern Norway Film Commission to handle future enquiries from international productions, with Troll 2 shooting in Jotunheimen, known as “the home of the giants”.

The Norwegian Film Institute is the main financing body and offers a variety of funding programmes for the development and production of feature films, TV dramas, documentaries and games. Minority co-production funding is also available, and priority is given to projects with a strong artistic potential and/or recognised potential in the Norwegian market. “Regional funding can also be combined with the film incentive,” notes Norwegian Film Commission chief executive Meghan Beaton. Her commission is an independent foundation based in Bergen, separate from the Norwegian Film Institute. 

Norway also has Sørfond, which grants financing for co-production of fiction and documentary films where the main producer is located in a Development Assistance Committee country. Applications to Sørfond must be made through a Norwegian minority producer.

Rebekka Rognøy, a producer on Solomamma, the directorial debut of Norwegian filmmaker Janicke Askevold, helped set it up as a Norway-Denmark-

Latvia-Lithuania-Finland co-production. “Through a Norwegian co-producer, productions can access funds both at a national and regional level,” says Rognøy. “It means smaller films can be made with international partners right now.”

The Norwegian government is constantly reviewing the country’s incentive with the goal of strengthening the sector and making it more competitive.

Norway also provides VFX for international projects, with recent projects including season two of HBO’s The Last Of Us, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds for CBS and Netflix’s disaster series La Palma.

Norwegian crews are fluent in English, and the country has enough crew for three large projects at any one time. The country boasts a mix of purpose-built stages and converted spaces in its largest cities. 

Oslo and its surrounds offer a quartet of facilities: Krypton, a purpose-built 423 square metre soundstage; Dagslys, a five-stage complex ranging in size from 80 to 500 square metres; FilmParken, with three soundstages ranging from 333 to 450 square metres; and Storyline, with one 88.5 square metre stage. Bergen’s M12 comprises two converted studios (540 square metres and 720 square metres), while Film Camp in Tromso has one converted studio and a 1,750 square metre backlot.  

There are multiple companies delivering line production services to international productions, including True North Norway, Living Daylights, Monolith, True West, Bearhug, PolarX and Film in Norway.

Norway is big but not densely populated. It has an established transport network, with 50 domestic and eight international airports. Oslo Gardermoen Airport connects to 26 domestic and 158 international destinations. There are ferries to even the most remote areas, and transport costs are competitive within Europe.

First contact: Meghan Beaton, Norwegian Film Commission @ meghan@norwegianfilm.com