Starring 'Lilyhammer's' Trond Fausa Aurvåg, the Norway-Greece co-production is slated to complete post-production in October Jens Lien, the Norwegian filmmaker behind cult dystopian comedy “The Bothersome Man” and HBO Nordic sci-fi satire “Beforeigners,” is returning to speculative territory with “Joe’s Assignment,” a near-future comedy starring Lilyhammer’s Trond Fausa Aurvåg and turning on work, automation and what happens when society no longer needs people to do very much at all. The Norway-Greece co-production, now in post, was showcased Thursday in the Works in Progress strand at New Nordic Films in Haugesund. Norway’s Einar Film Drama produces with Greece’s Filmiki.
The pic is backed by the Norwegian Film Institute, the Nordisk Film & TV Fond and NRK in Norway, alongside Greek public broadcaster ERT and Alto Invest. Scanbox/Ymer holds the Nordic distribution rights. Trond Fausa Aurvåg stars as Joe, an ambulance driver who loses his job when self-driving vehicles take over.
He is then absorbed into a government system under which people without work are assigned mandatory tasks to prevent them from becoming too passive. Joe’s problem is that his own assignment appears to have vanished somewhere inside the machinery of the system. His attempt to discover what he is supposed to be doing propels him through a succession of increasingly strange encounters, as his search for purpose becomes entangled with his desire for love, friendship and some kind of place in the world.
The first depicted Joe at a government NAV office, while the following two tracked his search for the missing assignment. It’s all about the human capacity for kindness and meaningful relationships.” The premise places the film inside a debate that has moved rapidly from speculative fiction into everyday working life, but Lien’s approach leans away from techno-thriller territory. Instead, Joe’s bureaucratic limbo provides a route into questions of usefulness, intimacy and belonging, combining an absurdist view of the future with a warmer, more humanist register.
Lien describes “Joe’s Assignment” as a spiritual successor to “The Bothersome Man,” his 2006 breakthrough, although he stresses that the two films are stylistically distinct. The film won the ACID Award at Cannes and went on to collect more than 30 international prizes. Lien singles out Aurvåg as central to the film’s emotional balance.
Per Schreiner wrote the screenplay. Anders Flatland serves as director of photography, Christian Siebenherz as editor, Danai Elefsinioti as production designer and Ginge Anvik as composer. Filming wrapped in mid-November, according to Emblem.
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