Kon-Tiki, an action-adventure flick has become Norway’s first film to be nominated for the Golden Globe Awards in the Best Foreign-Language Feature category, announced on Dec 13.
Kon-Tiki follows the legendary explorer Thor Heyerdal’s epic 4,300 miles crossing of the Pacific on a balsa wood raft in 1947, to prove that this could have been done in pre-Columbian times for South Americans to settle in Polynesia.
“Kon-Tiki has been a long way in the making, so it is with great pride we learn it has been nominated for the Golden Globe nomination – it is a true honor,” said directors Espen Sandberg and Joachim Rønning, whose film has sold more than 880,000 tickets domestically.
“Kon-Tiki has already won the Norwegian audience and is the biggest film of the year in its home market. The Golden Globe nomination confirms that the film has got enough wind in its sails to conquer an international audience – and maybe even follow the course of the renowned Oscar-winning documentary Kon-Tiki from 1950’s ”, says Stine Helgeland, Executive Director at the Norwegian Film Institute, and chairman of the Norwegian Oscar committee.
The film, produced by Aage Aaberge, has been selected for the Palm Springs Film Festival (3-4 January), and nominated for two American Satellite Awards (Best Foreign Film, Best Sound). The US website AwardsCircuit.com has placed it No 11 on the list of the 71 contenders for the Best-Foreign Language Feature nomination. Furthermore, the upcoming Gøteborg International Film Festival in Sweden – Scandinavia’s largest showcase – has selected Kon-Tiki to open its 36th edition on 25 January.
US distributor The Weinstein Company, which has purchased the film for the US, Canada, the UK and Italy, and UK co-producer Jeremy Thomas’ international sales company, Hanway Films, which has sold the film to more than 40 territories, are currently organising screenings in the US to promote the Norwegian submission for the Oscar as Best Foreign-Language Feature.
The original 8,000-kilometre trip on the wooden raft took 101 days and was filmed by Heyerdal himself for a documentary, which won an Oscar in 1952. Read more about the film here.
