Films of Norway, a Norwegian company, is currently offering their streaming services to people in the US with an interest in Norway. If you sign up, you will be able to see a variety of Norwegian films, TV series, and documentaries at your leisure. Everything is subtitled – if not in English. You can try them out for free for a week.
Here’s what they say about themselves…
We came to realize that there are more people around the world who share the same passion, so we decided to create a website offering Norwegian entertainment. The platform is available 24/7 as long as you have an internet connection and are signed in. The quality of Norwegian film and TV productions has improved significantly over the past decade, and is most likely the reason for the increasing demand from TV & streaming audience worldwide. We share our turnover with the film producers so that they get paid for the art they have created.
Learn more about this great offer here: https://www.filmsofnorway.com/
Films of Norway offers streaming of TV programs, movies, and documentaries, including this one where you can learn to cook Norwegian style with Ingvill Måkestad Bovim. Picture from Films of Norway’s web site.
Jo Nesbø thriller coming to a theater near you soon!
Picture from Filter Film og TV
This exhilarating new movie soon to hit the theaters is based on the novel “The Snowman”/” Snømannen” by king of the Norwegian crime, Jo Nesbø, starring Michael Fassbinder as Harry Hole. The Norwegian premiere will be on October 13, 2017, and one week later, you can see it in the US, on October 20th.
More information about the movie:
We have been busy creating our new web site (still at it) and adding social media (twitter) and when we were brainstorming about our new site a while ago, we wanted to find a picture that we would give us a reflection of the two worlds/cultures/countries we are bridging. We realized that it would be very hard to find the perfect picture and needed some help. Enter Liliane Blom, a talented artist with firm roots in Norway and famous here in DC for her artwork, among them, her recent exhibit: “Pink – A Cherry Blossom Fantasy”. She gave us the blended image we were looking for – the panoramic Norwegian mountains blending into the cherry blossoms of our capital. You will find her banner displayed on our new site, in our Facebook group, and on Twitter.
About the Artist
Liliane Blom is an installation artist as well as a classically trained painter and award winning photographer whose distinct style mixes her love of both media into a new one. She calls her fusion of painting and photography digital painting. Her pieces printed on canvas or watercolor paper are later enhanced with oils/pastels and often with gold or silver leaf. Based in Rockville Maryland of French/Norwegian extraction she is a frequent exhibitor in the Washington, D.C. region.
Liliane Blom’s installation art is interactive and immersive and often environmental in scope. They are multisensory experiences that engage the viewer with sound/touch and light. Playful, they unapologetically appeal to our sense of wonder.
Personal and poetic, rhythmic and layered, her work merges the world of sound and vision – the internal with the external. It focuses on borderlines. Those mostly invisible boundaries that separate me from you, us from them, reality from fantasy, childhood from adulthood, life from death and humans from the rest of the natural world.
If you would like to learn more about Liliane, visit her web site: http://www.lilianeblom.com/
She has a studio in Rockville, Maryland.
Norwegians sure love their slow TV shows! Now CBS Sunday Morning has come out with an interesting 9-minute documentary about it. The program introduces the concept with the following description:
“It is television’s version of taking a deep breath…a very long, very slow, deep breath. It’s called “Slow TV,” and it’s a surprise smash-hit in Norway, where millions tune in to watch live, unedited broadcasts of train journeys, ferry boat rides, firewood burning or people knitting for hours or days at a time. As Rune Moklebust, who helped conceive of Slow TV, explains to Seth Doane, the broadcasts simply reflect life: “Much of life itself is boring. But in-between, there are some exciting moments, and you just have to wait for them.””
Here’s a link you can follow to see for yourself:
The Norwegian billionaire Kjell Inge Røkke is currently funding the purchase of a giant research vessel for WWF. The ship will be able to collect and melt up to 5 tons of plastic every day, emissions free. The equipment on board will be cutting edge and enable researchers to take measurements from the atmosphere as well as 6000 meters below the surface of the sea and 20 meters into the seabed.
Røkke, a former fisherman and today one of the richest men in Norway, will pay an unknown amount for the purchase and maintenance of the vessel, which is truly one of a kind, measuring 181 meters, with a crew of 30 and room for 60 researchers. To read more about the undertaking and the exceptional research craft, click on the following link: https://www.thelocal.no/20170502/norwegian-billionaire-to-build-giant-ship-for-environment-research
Sources: Aftenposten, thelocal.no Photo: Lise Åserud/NTB Scanpix
Kjell Inge Røkke (born 25 October 1958 in Molde) is a Norwegian businessman and philanthropist and among the richest people in Norway, controlling the Norwegian company Aker ASA. Mr. Røkke launched his business career with the purchase of a 69-foot trawler in the United States in 1982, and gradually built a leading worldwide fisheries business. As at 31 December 2016, Mr. Røkke holds 68.2 per cent of the shares in Aker ASA through his investment company TRG AS and its subsidiaries, which he co-owns with his wife, Anne Grete Eidsvig (b. 1966). In 2015, Røkke was considered to be the tenth richest person in Norway, with a fortune of NOK 17.2 billion, approximately 2.6 billion U.S. dollars. By May 2017, his fortune was estimated to be 2.7 billion U.S. Dollars. Source: Wikipedia
On May 30th, the new Norwegian banknotes were released. The common theme is no longer portraits of the famous, but “the sea”. This year there will be new 50-krone, 100-krone and 200-krone notes in circulation while the higher denominations will follow in 2018 and 2019
The hilarious music video to promote the launch of the new notes, a replay on a famous song by KLM from the 80s, caused quite a stir. Click on the following link to learn what it was all about:
Many people ask about the strategy of the Norwegian Government in relation to the new administration of the United States. Minister of Foreign Affairs Børge Brende (Conservative Party) answer that question in a Press release April 21st 2017: “The future course of Norwegian foreign and security policy”. The Government will intensify European cooperation and redouble its efforts in unstable areas to the south and east of Europe, while maintaining and further developing its transatlantic cooperation. These are some of the main conclusions in the Government’s white paper on Norwegian foreign and security policy. The security situation is difficult. The white paper presents the Government’s views on the course Norway should follow to be as well-equipped as possible to meet today’s challenges. It is in Norway’s interest to maintain the well-established contours of Norwegian security policy. “At the same time, we need to adapt our policy to the new challenges we are encountering in fragile states and in the fight against terrorism,” Minister of Foreign Affairs Børge Brende said. In the white paper, the Government recommends strengthening existing foreign and security policy tools. “We must maintain and further develop our transatlantic cooperation, pursue a consistent, predictable policy in relation to Russia and continue our strong engagement for an international order based on values that are important to Norway. NATO and the US security guarantee will remain the cornerstone of Norway’s security policy,” said Mr. Brende.
Birth rates in Norway have decreased for the seventh year in a row.
Last month we could read the news that the birth rates in Norway have decreased for the seventh year in a row. A birth rate of 2.1 per woman is needed to keep population numbers constant. In Norway, the figure is now down to 1.71, having dropped every year since 2009.
One of the problems is that women wait much longer before they start having children, one expert stated. The average age of first-time parents of both genders is also increasing, according to figures released by Statistics Norway. The proportion of those having more children is falling. Without immigration Norway would not be able to grow and would be faced with a serious problem in getting the young population to serve the growing number of senior citizens. Despite the decreasing birth rate, population is in fact increasing in Norway, due to longer life expectancies and immigration.