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Norwegian Director, Actress, Screenwriter Camilla Roman |
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In September Norwegian director, screenwriter and actress Camilla
Roman’s short film Waves premiered at the tenth Global Nonviolent
Film Festival in Hollywood, California. Riveting Riffs Magazine had the
opportunity to watch Waves. Like other films that Camilla Roman
has written and directed Waves packs a powerful message that is
very relevant to this moment in time.
Norwegian readers will recognize Tonje Thwin from television series such
as Sol, Snart Seks (2016) when she was cast in the role of
Linnea’s mother and her regular role as Fiona in Hotel Caesar
between 2014 – 17. Eric Vorenholt is best known for his role as Arne
Hammer in The King’s Choice (2016), which was in consideration
for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. He also appeared in six
episodes of the 2020 television series Vikingane.
Camilla talks about casting both actors, “I thought Tonje Thwin and Eric
Vorenholt would be excellent choices for this film. When I wrote the
script they appeared in my mind, because I knew them a little bit. It
was the natural choice to ask them. They said yes and I was very happy
that I cast them. I think both of them are excellent actors.
I can tell you why I was drawn to a story like that and why I wanted to
direct it. There are many cases like this in Norway and most of the time
it doesn’t come to people’s attention. There is a case now in Norway of
someone who came to Norway when he was six and now that he is eighteen
and he has been kicked out of the country and they kicked out his mom.
It has gone back to court to see if the verdict can be reversed. People
have said you can’t just send him out, because Norway is his home. There
are other cases like this.
We have had a rightwing government for eight years and I think it has
become stricter. That is one of the things people talked about in the
recent election. They were voicing that we need a different policy
concerning how we treat immigrants and asylum seekers who are not
treated fairly.
I feel it is unfair for people to be told no after they have lived here
for several years, who are paying taxes, have a job and they are
integrated into the community. Suddenly someone thinks they have found a
fault and they say I think you are lying or this is not correct. Your
country was safe for you and suddenly it is not.
Leyla is an example of so many people around the world. She is a symbol
of many women who have been in similar situations.
What about these police officers who are ordered to go back and drive
them to the airport and send them off! They are not the decision makers;
they just have their orders. I am sure a lot of them find it terrible to
do something like that. That was the inspiration for the film.”
In length, Waves is 16:20.
Camilla Roman
talks about the film and the title, “I
thought we all have heads, shoulders and toes no matter our race, sexual
orientation or age.
There is a group called PurpleDragons that is a production
company. From time to time they have these workshops and I was on one of
them. This was during Pride Week two years ago. Our theme for the
workshop was equality and were given half of a day to come up with
something. We filmed (our ideas). The dialogue was improvised.”
The best way to describe this film without leaking spoilers is to say,
the film explores stereotypes about age, sexual orientation and much
more. We are living in 2021 and yet whether you live in Europe or North
America the two regions of the world we are most familiar with;
prejudice keeps rearing its ugly head and often with violent outcomes.
Hode,
skulder, kne og tå
(Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes
)
does not take a confrontational approach, but rather is lowkey and yet
very convincing.
The two protagonists in the film are Jonas (younger man) played by
Anders Wenger and Paul (older man) by actor by Terje Bruun Lien. We
would like to see more of both actors as they are outstanding. Marianne
Jonger makes a brief appearance as the teacher. Roman, Wenger and Lien
collaborated with Franklin Bass Mukadi and Frank Evensen to write the
screenplay.
Camilla Roman
acknowledges that the theme of the film was to breakdown those
stereotypes, “I
think all of us, even if we feel we are not prejudiced and we are
accepting of people for who they are, most of us have some kinds of
thoughts that come up if we see someone who is different or someone who
has a different lifestyle even if we are not always aware of that. I
wanted people to recognize that.
When talking about the children (the characters) realize children don’t
have these thoughts. Children don’t care who your parents are or where
you come from.”
We will get to Camilla Roman’s acting in a minute, but let’s go back to
the beginning. She was born in Tromsø, in the North of Norway, above the
Arctic Circle.
“It is cold and dark and we have the midnight sun in the summer. For
one-half of the year, it is very light and for the other half year it is
very dark. It is cold in the winters and cold in the summers most of the
time. It is the fifth biggest city in Norway, although it is more of a
town. By Norwegian standards it is pretty big, but (really) it is pretty
small,” she says.
At nine years of age, Camilla Roman did not waste time on obscure roles
and she started by playing the Virgin Mary in a nativity play (since
twisted humor is sometimes hard to detect in this forum, that is our
attempt!)
Jokingly she says, “Yes that was my breakthrough role. It was my first
role and it was when I realized I wanted to be an actor.
When I was in school, I was kind of invisible and I was an average
student, but as an actor I could shine. People would come up to me when
I did something on stage and they would complement me. I felt this was
what I was good at and this is what I wanted to do.”
In Norway, Camilla Roman also was enrolled in dance school, “When I was
in dance school my teachers were English. I wasn’t a very good dancer at
all. I started way too late, but I felt included and I was happy to be a
part of it all. My teachers were very strict, but it was a tough love
and I felt that they really cared. Being in dance school helped my
English education. We had it in school, but in dance school I heard it
from native English people several times a week and we also spoke in
English to our teachers.
I lived in Tromsø until I was twenty and then I moved to London to go to
drama school. I did theater and things like that when I was a kid and a
teenager. I just needed to get out and to go abroad. Maybe it is like a
lot of artists and creative people when you do not feel like you always
fit in and you want to find the people who are similar to you.
(When I decided) that I wanted to get away there were so many different
(acting) schools in England and in Norway there was only one and each
year they only accepted six to eight students. Getting in there was
super difficult.
There was not the (availability) of the internet back then so we had to
write for the catalogue of schools. I applied to a couple of schools in
London and then one in Newcastle. It turned out that when I got there it
wasn’t a very good school and the students weren’t serious. A lot of
them just wanted to party and have a good time. Our teachers weren’t
that good. I thought I was never going to become an actor from being
there. This wasn’t going to work for me. I needed something else. I left
after one semester, and I went back to Norway. I went to London the next
fall.
I applied to proper schools in London and I liked London. It is such a
great city and there are so many opportunities to watch good theater. I
had a lot of friends. The school was hard. It was not a breeze to go to
a London drama school. I think now they are better than they were back
then. They would push you down and mold you into what they wanted you to
be. A lot of our teachers were failed actors and they were bitter. We
learned Ibsen, Shakespeare and Chekov. They were very thorough. Some of
the teachers and especially the ones making the decisions had favorites
who always got the leads. Then there were ones who were not favorites
like me who most of the time I was playing the maid and things like
that. When you do that again and again you feel like you aren’t growing
as much.
I was the first person in my year to get an agent. At that time the
internet wasn’t really used for castings, so I did not get a lot of
auditions. I don’t think it was my agent’s fault and he did what he
could. It wasn’t accessible to him at this time. After a while and
because so many of my friends left London, I went back to Norway.
A year after I graduated, I went to Los Angeles to do a two-week summer
course at Actors Studio West. I (returned) to the United States in 2004
and I did one year at the New York Film Academy, but it was in LA at
Universal Studios,” she says.
We asked Camilla Roman to compare living in Norway to London and Los
Angeles and also to relate the type of training she received in those
countries.
In the beginning you wonder how you are going to get around this
humongous city, but after a couple of weeks you get used to it. I loved
both Los Angeles and London. They are still part of me, so when I go
back, I feel very much at home. It was where I needed to be in those
moments.
There was a huge difference (in the London schools from the American
ones), absolutely huge. They have a different way of treating students
now in London, but when I was there many of my teachers seemed bitter
that they never made it as an actor. I was never encouraged when I was
in London.
In Los Angeles I met a lot of casting directors, agents and all kinds of
industry people for the (initial) two weeks that I was there. I received
a lot of good feedback and I had never before experienced that from
professionals. They made me feel that this was what I should be doing
and I should move there. This was the place to be.
I wanted to immerse myself in film and television more than stage. I had
three years of training already and I couldn’t afford three more years,
so the New York Film Academy (also in Los Angeles) had a one year
(program). All of the teachers we had were still working in the
industry. They would teach and talk about the audition they had earlier
that morning or productions they had been on. It was a completely
different experience and also, they were encouraging. I got to play a
lot of interesting roles. We didn’t do big theater productions, but we
would do scenes on camera and we had showcases. I could make suggestions
and they would say yes, cool let’s do that. I am still in touch with
three of my teachers from my time in L.A. and I saw them when I was
there for my premiere of Love You to Death. It was great. (She
then laughs) I have never met my teachers from London ever again.”
Since you brought up the film
Love You to Death, let’s talk about that for a minute or two.
“Love You to Death happened after (I wrote and directed) my feature
film, so I decided to try a short film. It came from a dream that I had
when I was writing it. I was planning to play the lead part myself, but
when I was writing it, it was so clear to me that I thought I have to
direct this. I cast Kirsti Lovas in that part. I was concerned at first
that I would find it hard to give it to her, because I had planned on
playing the part, but it was not hard at all. I let Kirsti do it the way
she wanted to do it with her views and thoughts about the character. It
felt so natural for me to direct the film. That is why I directed two
more films after that,” she says.
This year, Camilla Roman stars in nine episodes of the television series
Coda Kork, as Maxima, produced by NRK, (Norwegian Broadcasting
Corporation) and the show started to be broadcast in mid-September.
Camilla Roman talks about Coda Kork, “It is a comedy series regular on
the show. A lot of the parts I have done have been comedy. Two
well-known Norwegian actors / comedians developed this show. In Norway
NRK is the equivalent of BBC. They have their own orchestra and this
year is there 75 th anniversary. The NRK orchestra is in the show. They
are not acting, they are playing. It is a comedic look at the orchestra.
The two leads are playing four different characters each.
One day I came in and I couldn’t recognize the guy over there and
then it was oh my god it’s you. I couldn’t recognize him at all.
I think it is going to be funny.
There are only three other actors in it.
My role is Maxima who is Russian and a classical musician. She is a very
serious woman.”
In 2020 Camilla Roman appeared in the pilot for the television series
The Shadows and her character was
Hege Bjørke.
“We did the
pilot and the director / producer tried to get funding to produce the
whole series.
In Norway we have state and regional funding and very seldom are private
investors involved. It is getting a little more common, but still very
few people do that. When you apply for the state and regional funding it
is difficult to get money, because they have so many rules and
regulations. Because I do not have an education in screenwriting or
directing, I am not even qualified to apply. That is the biggest problem
and a lot of people in the film community are frustrated about that.
The series Skyggene (The Shadows) is about an African guy who comes to
Norway, and he is an illegal. He becomes friends with a Norwegian guy
who has been in jail. I am the ex-girlfriend of the guy who was in jail,
and we have a daughter together. I play a social worker who is familiar
with people who are illegal immigrants. There were people from a lot of
different countries who were (involved) with that production. The
director and the writer is an immigrant from Libya. He is trying to be a
filmmaker in Norway.
The director, Prince Nyantian Joe approached me, and he sent me some of
the script. I had worked with him before on a film and I knew he was
serious about what he was doing. I thought it was an interesting story
and something that we should see in Norway. The stuff that is shown on
Norwegian television is still very middle class and white. They are
starting to get influences from other cultures, but it is written by
people who came to Norway, and it was not written by Norwegians who may
not have very much knowledge about this community and what it is like to
be an immigrant.
In addition, to her many guest appearances on Norwegian television
series, Camilla Roman also had a recurring role as Lena on Rekyl.
“Lena is a single mom who has to make ends meet by being a stripper and
then she got involved with this police guy who is shady. She is like an
informant for him. This whole series is about the criminal underworld of
Oslo. I am in three episodes and eventually I decide to take my daughter
and leave. It was getting too dangerous (for my character) to be a part
of this community.
I was only supposed to be in one episode and they liked what I did and
so they wrote more scenes for me. It was very cool to find out they
really liked what I did and they wanted to see more of that. I realized
there was more of a story to this character than had been written.
What was great about working with these people is they took time to have
a conversation with me, before they shoot. We talked about the character
and where she came from. They were very laid back and easy to
communicate with. It was a great experience to be on that show and now
it is available in America on Amazon Prime. It is available pretty well
all over on streaming channels.”
Finally, we wanted Camilla Roman to compare her experiences as an
actress to being a screenwriter and director.
“I think the main difference in being a writer, director and producer is
I am part of the project for the entire time. Two of the scripts came
from my head and it is a completely different feeling creating something
from scratch and being a part of the whole process.
At the end when the film is finished and you have to do the distribution
and the film festivals and all the stuff like that it is challenging,
being more or less alone doing that. Still, it is my film and I want it
to be seen and noticed. It is just part of the job being a producer.”
Reflecting upon her return to Los Angles to present her first film,
Love You to Death one that was made with few financial resources,
she says, “To come back to L.A. it is like a part of me and I feel at
home there. It was an amazing, amazing experience to go back. It is one
of the things I am most proud of in my life is to do my first film with
no money and then to have it premiere in Hollywood. I don’t think any
other Norwegian films have done that.”
Please
visit the website for Camilla Roman.
You can also follow Camilla Roman
on Instagram.
#CamillaRomanDirector #CamillaRomanActress #CamillaRomanScreenwriter #RivetingRiffsMagazine #RivetingRiffs #WomenDirectors #WomenFilmmakers #WomenScreenwriters #NorwegianFilms #NorwegianTelevision #DirectorsNorway #ActressesNorway
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Without
giving away too much of the storyline, asylum seeker Leyla played by
Tonje Thwin and Stig portrayed by Eric Vorenholt meet during a COVID-19
lockdown, while Stig is making a delivery to her home. All is not what
it seems however and as the story unfolds the characters have to make a
decision to trust one another and to tell their own stories. 