‘The Horsemen of the Apocalypse’ Director Shares Insight Into Her Hybrid Movie That Revisits Her Filmmaker Father’s Arrest and Death
Norwegian filmmaker Lene Berg has spoken to The Hollywood Reporter about her hybrid film The Horsemen of the Apocalypse, which revisits the 1975 arrest of her father, director and author Arnljot Berg, who was charged in Paris with murdering his wife and later died by suicide in 1982. Berg was nine at the time of the arrest, and the film forms the final part of a loose trilogy alongside an exhibition and a novel exploring the same family history. She discussed the project at the Venice Gap-Financing Market, where she is seeking backers to complete the film, which blends documentary, staged and fictional elements.
Filming has wrapped and the film is in post-production. Actress Ane Dahl Torp plays Berg's alter ego, Olav Waastad portrays her late father, and Berg herself also appears on screen. The film is produced by Ellen Ugelstad of Norway's Twentyone Pictures in co-production with partners in Sweden and Germany, with backing from bodies including Eurimages, the Norwegian Film Institute, the Swedish Film Institute and ARTE. Berg described the work as both deeply personal and structurally fragmented, saying she wanted it to move beyond a conventional narrative while touching on trauma, guilt and memory.
- Lene Berg's new film revisits her father's 1975 murder arrest.
- Hybrid documentary-fiction film is seeking finance at Venice.
- Ane Dahl Torp plays Berg's alter ego in the movie.
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Norwegian filmmaker Lene Berg has spent years processing a painful chapter of her own family history: in 1975, when she was nine, her father, the director and author Arnljot Berg, was arrested in Paris and charged with murdering his wife. He died by suicide in 1982. Berg has since revisited this history through an exhibition, a novel, and now a film, treating it as the final part of a loose trilogy.
The film in question, The Horsemen of the Apocalypse, is described as a hybrid work that mixes documentary footage, staged scenes and fictional elements rather than following a conventional narrative. Actress Ane Dahl Torp plays a version of Berg herself, while Olav Waastad portrays her late father, and Berg also appears on screen. It is produced by Ellen Ugelstad of Norway's Twentyone Pictures, working with partners in Sweden and Germany, and has drawn support from bodies such as Eurimages, the Norwegian Film Institute, the Swedish Film Institute and the broadcaster ARTE.
The project matters both as a personal reckoning with trauma, guilt and memory, and as an example of how filmmakers use hybrid, boundary-blurring formats to tell true stories that resist simple retelling. Berg has been discussing the film at the Venice Gap-Financing Market, an industry event where filmmakers seek additional funding to complete works still in production.