COOL AND CRAZY
aka HEFTIG OG BEGEISTZET

Year: 2001
UK: Artificial Eye
Cast: Berlevag Male Choir
Director: Knut Erik Jensen
Country: Norway
Language: Norwegian (English subtitles)
UK: 104 mins
UK Certificate: 15 contains strong language and one drugs reference
UK Release Date: 8 February 2002 (Limited Release)

Synopsis

The Norwegian director, Knut Erik Jensen, has shot to fame in Norway with the release of his cult film COOL AND CRAZY. Having learnt his trade at the London International Film school, Jensen returned to Norway to direct his first feature STELLA POLARIS, he then went on to film, breaking all Norwegian box office records. It is already one of the greatest successes in Norwegian film history as well as an award-winning success in festivals around the world.

The story of Berlevag, one of the most northerly fishing villages in Norway (already made famous as the setting for Isak Dinesen's story for BABETTE'S FEAST) is told through the thirty-or-so members of the distinguished Berlevag male choir. With ages ranging from 29 to 96, this enthusiastic group of men are ruled with an iron fist by their chain smoking, wheelchair-bound, pony tailed conductor.

The choir members talk freely of their lives, their loves and their dreams for the future - their dreams being rather bleak, as their incomes have been hit by progressive closures of fisheries. Their rehearsals, their rare public performances and devotion to the choir, however, provide an escape from the hardship of the real world, forging a sense of friendship around the world.