Faroese director Sakaris Stora has started shooting his second feature, The Last Paradise On Earth, in Hvalba on the Faroe Islands. The film will be the first to be entirely shot on the remote island Suduroy. The shoot will run from May 15 to June 30.
Samal Hansen stars witht Bjorg B. Egholm, Bjorn M. Mohr and Esther a Fjallinum, Hans Torgard (Trom) and Annika Johannessen.
Stora, who formerly worked at a Faroese fish factory himself, co-wrote the script with Tommy Oksen and Mads Stegger
Jon Hammer produces for Adomeit Film in Denmark and kykmyndir in the Faroes; with Katja Adomeit serving as executive producer. Danish Film Institute, Film Fyn DR, Faroese Ministry of Culture, and Creative Europe Media are the backers. The film also qualifies for the Faroese reimbursement scheme from the Faroese Film Institute.
The project is the first Faroese-language fiction feature to be supported by the Danish Film Institute since 1999’s
Bye Bye Bluebird.The crew includes DoP Virginie Surde, whose credits inlude
Casablanca Beats andThe Blue Caftan. At project stage,
The Last Paradise On Earth won the VFF Talent Highlight Award at the Berlinale Talents Market in 2020. The film is being produced in collaboration with Denmark’s BFTP, with a focus on sustainable production. The team hopes to release the film early in 2024. No sales company is attached yet.Stora’s 2014 short
Winter Morning,
about teenage girls at a turning point in their lives, won a prize at Berlinale Generation; he followed that with 2018 debut featureDreams by the Sea, about a teenage girl frustrated by her mundane life who meets a rebellious newcomer to her town, which screened at festivals including Rome, Goteborg, Lubeck, Tromso and Riga.Hammer is the producer of Dreams by the Sea
, documentary Heartist, Faroese TV hit Trom and has also served as the Faroese production manager on No Time To Die.Clare Stewart, former London Film Festival director, to join Rotterdam as managing director