NORWAY – 2011 – 96 MIN – COLOUR - FEATURE - IN NORWEGIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES
A FILM BY JOACHIM TRIER

Anders will soon complete his drug rehabilitation in the countryside. As part of the program, he is allowed to go into the city for a job interview. But he takes advantage of the leave and stays on in the city, drifting around, meeting people he hasn't seen in a long while. Thirty-four-year-old Anders is smart, handsome and from a good family, but deeply haunted by all the opportunities he has wasted, all the people he has let down. He is still relatively young, but feels his life in many ways is already over. For the remainder of the day and long into the night, the ghosts of past mistakes will wrestle with the chance of love, the possibility of a new life and the hope to see some future by morning.

DIRECTOR
OSLO, AUGUST 31ST is Norwegian director Joachim Trier's second feature film. He made his feature debut in 2006 with REPRISE, which received numerous international awards, including Best Director at Karlovy Vary and the Discovery Award at Toronto. Joachim was also named one of Variety's 10 Directors to Watch at Sundance. REPRISE also won the Amanda (Norwegian Oscar) for Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay.

Joachim previously won acclaim with a number of prize-winning shorts and commercials, such as PROCTER, a short about the unexpected footage found in a dead man's video camera.

Joachim, born in Copenhagen, 1974, grew up in a filmmaking family and began shooting his first 8mm films at the age of five. He became a national skateboarding champion in Norway and made skateboarding videos. After attending the European Film College in Denmark, he trained at the British National Film and Television School.

 

3.5 out of 4! "Trier’s all in a calendar-day conceit gives OSLO, AUGUST 31ST a clean, clear structure, and yet it doesn’t hem it in. Without ever diverting its gaze from the aching cipher at its centre, the film takes in just enough of the sights to register as a piece of social portraiture – the city as a haunted house populated by beloved ghosts, as a much sought-after sanctuary and as the tenderest of traps."
- THE GLOBE AND MAIL

"...a superb exploration of loss, guilt and regret in Norwegian director Joachim Trier’s often-unpredictable second film."
3.5 out of 4!
- THE TORONTO STAR

9 out of 10! "a smart, sensitive, and perceptive drama that more than matches the quality of its predecessor."
- THE GRID

"This is masterful psychological puzzle hits like a ton of bricks."
- METRO NEWS

NNNN! "Lie delivers a remarkably contained performance that keeps us hanging on Anders’s every minute gesture. Meanwhile, writer/director Joachim Trier (a distant relative of Lars) treats the man’s ordeal with an assured hand, making a commonplace story unique."
- NOW MAGAZINE

"As we near its conclusion, events are balanced on a knife-edge of hope and despair. I won’t say on which side Anders falls, only that I was rooting for him."
- NATIONAL POST

"Stylization and gimmickry often obfuscate objective reality, much as the limited, guttural characterizations typically alienate the viewer from relating, which is where the strength of Norwegian director Joachim Trier's sophomore feature length film stems."
- EXCLAIM!

"It's worth your while to enter that space for 90 minutes."
- VUE WEEKLY

"This film is designed to spark a dialogue among those who watch it"
- DORK SHELF

"Striking Norwegian drama about a day in the life of a drug addict, trying to stay clean. Was part of Un Certain Regard section at Cannes 2011."
- MONTREAL GAZETTE

"This haunting drama about a man trying to confront his ghosts was nominated for several awards, including Un Certain Regard Award at Cannes, and won prizes for Best Film and Best Cinematography the Stockholm International Film Festival."
- TORONTO FILM SCENE

"...a fascinating piece of cinema that works on many levels. But be warned, this is not a Hollywood film with a tacked on happy ending, it’s a spiral downwards that keeps going to its bleak and depressing ending, but it’s ultimately a fitting and very believable finish to our time with Anders. OSLO, AUGUST 31ST is a definite recommend, and I’m betting an early candidate for a Best Foreign Language Academy Award nomination."
- ENTERTAINMENT MAVEN

"This is a great, gently-paced internal drama: I recommend it."
- CULTURAL MINING on CIUT Radio