Presented by Main Street Landing and VTIFF
Louder Than Bombs
Directed by Joachim Trier (Oslo, August 31st, Reprise)
Norway (English Language) | Fiction/Drama | 2015 | 109 min.
Starring Amy Ryan, Gabriel Byrne, Isabelle Huppert, Jesse Eisenberg, David Strathairn
Cannes Film Festival 2015, Nominated for Palme d’Or
Norwegian International Film Festival 2015, Won Norwegian Film Critics Award
Stockholm Film Festival 2015, Nominated for Bronze Horse, Best Film
On the eve of an exhibition honoring noted war photographer Isabelle Reed (Isabelle Huppert), whose career was cut short in the wake of her untimely death, a father and two sons grapple with her domestic and professional legacy. Flashbacks of Isabelle’s conflated role of wife, mother and photojournalist intermingle with the present-day attempts of the Reeds to manage their grief amid combat of a different kind. Family patriarch Gene (Gabriel Byrne) discovers secrets about his late spouse while pursuing a new romance and struggling to connect with teenage son Conrad (Devin Druid), who hides in video games and introspection. Adult son Jonah (Jesse Eisenberg) takes leave from academic and married life to organize his mother’s archive, only to slip into reckless behavior. Past and present coalesce in sharp focus as the surviving Reeds come to terms with love and loss — locating in memories both painful and joyous the skills they need to soldier on…
ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS
JOACHIM TRIER (director, co-writer) is an internationally celebrated director and screenwriter. His critically acclaimed and award-winning feature films REPRISE (2006) and OSLO, AUGUST 31st (2011), both co-written with Eskil Vogt, have won awards at international film festivals including Cannes, Sundance, Toronto, Karlovy Vary, Gothenburg, Milan, and Istanbul. OSLO, AUGUST 31st was selected for Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival in 2011 and nominated for the César award for Best Foreign Film 2013 after reaching over 180,000 admissions at theatres in France. REPRISE received the 2007 Amanda Award (Norway’s top film prize) for Best Norwegian Film, Best Director and Best Script. The film was released in the U.S. by Miramax and was the Norwegian Oscar candidate for Best Foreign Film in 2006. Hailed as ”a sublimely natural talent,“ Trier was named one of “20 Directors to Watch” by the New York Times in 2013. LOUDER THAN BOMBS is his English language debut.
ESKIL VOGT (co-writer) is a Norwegian film director and screenwriter whose films include REPRISE and OSLO, AUGUST 31st, directed by Joachim Trier with screenplays co-written by Vogt and Trier. He wrote and directed the drama BLIND, which screened at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, where it received the World Cinema Screenwriting Award. The film also screened at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival.