Elsa Kvamme

Elsa Kvamme was born in New York, but grew up in Oslo. She started as an acting student at the Odin Theatre in Denmark, and then established one of Norway's first free theatre groups, Saltkompagniet, who played all over Europe for six years. She has studied Asian theatre and written over 20 plays, translated Jacques Brel to Norwegian and released three CDs with her own songs.

After attending film school at New York University (1992-1993) she wrote the screenplay for Maya Stoneface (directed by Lars Berg in 1996) and made the documentaries Students at War: Part 1 and Students at War: Part 2 (1997) and A Lady with a Hat (1999). Her debut as a feature film director, Fia! (2003), received ten international awards at various festivals around the world, including at the Giffoni Film Festival in 2004 and the Golde Elephant in India in 2005.

Norsk Filminstitutt