By MICHAEL GINGOLD
Distribution on the original and production on the full-length expansion will be happening next year.
RUE MORGUE got the scoop from Norwegian filmmaker Severin Eskeland that his haunted-house short ALLODIUM will be receiving wider exposure following its success on the fest circuit. “ALLODIUM has had a great run at festivals,” he tells us, “pulling in 16 awards and 20 nominations around the world, for Best Actress, Editing, Cinematography, Director and several Audience Awards for Best Film.
“I also got in contact with the good people at Bloody Bites,” the Screambox/Bloody Disgusting short film showcase, “who wanted to check it out, and I’m extremely happy to report that ALLODIUM finally has found a home there. Getting it out on a streaming platform like this is very surreal, considering we made it several years ago on more or less no budget. It will be part of Bloody Bites season eight, premiering January 5, 2024.” The synopsis for ALLODIUM is as follows: “After receiving news about her father’s suicide, Anna, 28, travels back home in search of answers. Sent away at the age of 10, never knowing why and without speaking to her father since, Anna will soon discover that sometimes the past is best left alone.”
Eskeland is now crewing up for the feature-film version of ALLODIUM. “We´ve played around with that idea for some time,” he says, “and since the Bloody Bites deal happened, we decided to go for it. The script will be wrapped up in the coming days, and the staff is being put together for a July/August 2024 shoot. It will be a different story than the short, but with the same premise. I like to call it THE CONJURING meets BLAIR WITCH with a taste of THE STRANGERS,” he laughs. “Of course, low-budget features are always risky, but we have some investors lined up, and we are also working on attaching some collaborators from the U.S.”
This will be Eskeland’s third feature following SNARVEIEN (a.k.a. DETOUR, 2009) and LUST (2017), the latter of which has recently been sold to the U.S. (where it will be released by Danse Macabre/MVD Distribution), Canada, Germany and Britain. Stay tuned for further updates on the ALLODIUM feature.
