US hack making D-movie about Utøya shooting spree

[Safe-Keeper]

So. It's been three months since the Oslo/Utøya attacks, and when it happened, even though I wanted there not to be, I just knew there would be a film some day. Just the same way there are films about Titanic, WWII, 9/11 and Tiananmen Square. But I naively figured that everyone would wait at least several years with such a project.

Guess what, though? Some genius is making a movie now. Yeah. Three months after the attack. With casualties still in Norwegian hospitals. There's a trailer out on YouTube, and the national tabloid newspaper VG caught whiff of the story. Public reactions were pretty much as expected -- for example, a Facebook page dedicated to stopping the film quickly grew to 30 000 pissed-off Norsemen before it was taken down, and the Versace Entertainment page of FB is currently drowning in spam and hate posts.

Some gems from this developing story:

• The trailer shows Breivik crossing the sound in a rowboat. In reality he made use of the island's ferry service. This is a basic, basic fact that anyone making a film or documentary about Utøya should be aware of.
• The trailer misspells both "berserk" and "Utøya".
• The producer has stated he believes it took Norwegian police 72 hours to reach the island. Insert "Not Sure if Serious" meme image here.
• Judging from the trailer, the film seems to be solely about the attack itself, a gory reenactment if you will.

I realize my bias here, being Norwegian and with friends and family who have suffered losses, and I realize this is a small-time production that will probably never even make it to domestic movie theatres, much less Norwegian DVD shelves, but is this not more than a tad bit inappropriate this early, and with so little respect to factual accuracy? This reeks of a "disaster porn" production that aims to cash in on emotion and news coverage while throwing any kind of consideration and research to the wind.

Best of all, though? The ***** claims to make the film "in deep respect" of the victims, and claims it was made to make people support tighter gun regulation laws. He is quoted as saying something to the nature that "this is what happens when you sell guns to retarded people" (there was of course no indication when Breivik bought the guns that he was "retarded", nor is there any sign of "retardation" in him today, but why let facts get in the way of a good story).

 

[Travis]

That sounds awful. Is there a memorial in the works?

 

[uk_dave]

That sounds awful. Is there a memorial sequel in the works?

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

 

[WildCat]

A movie no one would have ever heard of if not for the people outraged by it publicizing it.

 

[stilicho]

A movie no one would have ever heard of if not for the people outraged by it publicizing it.

One might almost suspect the production company itself was using social networking sites to raise awareness of an otherwise unremarkable film.

 

[Vic Vega]

A movie no one would have ever heard of if not for the people outraged by it publicizing it.

If there is one thing that you can count on these days it's that no matter what you do or say, someone will be outraged.

This "filmmaker" was probably praying for this type of reaction. He needn't have worried... It was a guarantee.