Erik Poppe, who previously directed "The Emigrants" (2021), and Jon Fosse have been friends for over 30 years.
For much of that time, a copy of "Bad Moon Rising" has been sitting on Erik Poppe's desk.
Jon once asked me if I thought he should try writing a screenplay. So I said, “Of course, do it,” he says.
It's been sitting on my desk watching me ever since. Only Jon and I have known about this script all these years.
In 2023, Jon Fosse was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Then the time was also ripe to finally start hunting for financing for the script – the first and so far only one that the Norwegian playwright has written directly for film.
"Even at that time it felt like Jon Fosse was going to explode and become a huge star. But I don't think people understood his style back then," says Erik Poppe.
His way of telling the story is minimalist, very bare and pure, strong and moving. But now the whole world wants to see this film.
Chartered vessel
The story revolves around Gerd (Kristi-Helene Giæver Engeberg) and Asle (Leo Magnus de la Nuez), who fall in love and have a son together, but are increasingly torn apart by Asle's job at sea.
When the film crew opens for visits, filming is coming to an end. For the day, a container ship just over 120 meters long has been chartered and docked in Grötö harbor in Lysekil.
What remains to be shot is one of the key scenes, where Asle rejoins the ship and leaves his heavily pregnant girlfriend behind on the dock.
He will be on the ship for three months, so this is where the challenges and problems begin, says Erik Poppe.
It's a very beautiful and strong story, with a lot of passion and emotion. But it's also a story about how much distance love can endure.
“Very beautiful”
Anyone who has read Jon Fosse will recognize the Nobel Prize winner's somewhat peculiar and spare style in the film as well, believes Kristi-Helene Giæver Engeberg.
"He writes very beautifully. There's a lot that's not said, a bit more like in theater," she says.
There's a lot of silence. In the script, there's pause, longer pause, and pause, all the way through. And then we have to fill it with something.
Her co-star Leo Magnus de la Nuez can only agree.
"There's a lot of silence and stillness in the script. That's what's so exciting about Jon," he says.
And that's why he got the Nobel Prize, isn't it? He puts words to the invisible.
Born: 1959 in Haugesund, grew up in Strandebarm in Western Norway.
Family: Married, five children.
Best known as a playwright. His plays have been performed in more than a thousand productions on stages in Europe, Asia and the United States. In Norway, however, he is at least as appreciated as a novelist.
Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2023.
The film "Bad Moon Rising", which will also be published in book form, is scheduled to premiere next fall.
