Trygve Hagen

Trygve Hagen (1954) was born on the island Gossen, grew up in Andalsnes, and spent his youth in Molde, the town of jazz, theater and football, all places situated in Romsdal on the North West coast of Norway, between the cities of Bergen and Trondheim. Hagen made his first Super8 film in 1974, studied film and TV at Volda University College 1976-78, attended Oslo College of Education before embarking on his film career in 1983 as a production assistant. He contributed to several motion pictures and short films throughout the 1980's, among them the American film The Flight of the Navigator, 1986, due to the fact that it was partly shot in Norway, in an empty factory outside Oslo because there was Norwegian investment money in it. Hagen attended the producer (single and multi-camera directing) course at the NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation) in 1992-93. He took to film editing in 1988 when a colleague asked him to try to make a film of the footage he'd put in a big box and given up on, which was intended to portray a young Norwegian painter called Hedda Gjerpen. Hagen has edited several shorts and documentaries and 13 feature films , among them Knut Erik Jensen's Stella Polaris, Anja Breien's Housewives III and Torun Lian's Only Clouds move the Stars. Hagen was an editing assistant, and even an extra, on Liv Ullman's Kristin Lavransdatter, 1995. He is also known for having dramatised and made several short films of the prose texts of the famous Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse, among them the novel The Boathouse, 1997, which gained him an Amanda film prize nomination for best short film. He also gained an Amanda nomination for his personal film essay Father and Son, 2004, portraying his father, himself and his son. Hagen has written and directed about 30 short films and some artist portraits. Trygve Hagen took to film teaching in 2006 but is still making films on the side, and even debuted as a feature film producer and director with The Bridges, 2011, based on the famous Norwegian writer Tarjei Vesaas's novel The Bridges. Hagen has a liking for visual films more than the mainstream "filmed-theater-films" and admires directors like Bo Widerberg, Jan Troell, Claude Lelouche, Wim Wenders, Terrence Malick and Jose Louis Guerín. However, he also appreciates the films of Peter Weir, Stephen Daldry, Ridley Scott and Michael Mann.