Film Archive

The Disappearing Illusionist

Another View 2015 / Dirk Ohm - illusjonisten som forsvant / Norway, Sweden, Germany 2015

German illusionist Dirk Ohm gets mixed up in the search for a lost girl in northern Norway. While the inhabitants are combing the surrounding area, he envisions the girl in his fantasies and gradually falls in love with her. A film about human loneliness and about an illusion that may be stronger than reality.

Synopsis

After Dirk nearly freezes to death in his car, he stops in a small town somewhere up north where, just before his arrival, a girl named Marie mysteriously vanished. Dirk hasn’t got any money for a hotel, so he starts doing some magic tricks for the punters in the hotel bar. He thus finds a well-paid little routine and is able to hole up in one of the hotel’s solitary rooms. The whole town is out looking for Marie, but no-one has any idea that he sees the girl in his dreams. And if that wasn’t enough – he goes and falls in love with her. Dirk helps the locals in their search, but maybe he doesn’t want to find Marie, maybe he’s looking for his own story. Based on an actual case (the real Dirk Ohm disappeared in the Norwegian town of Grong in 2003), this mystery poses a simple question: “What would happen if I suddenly disappeared? Would anyone miss me? And how would I know this if I were missing?” Illusion and reality converge in the middle of a melancholy winter landscape in this perfectly executed feat of magic.

Nikola Paggio

About the film

93 min / Color, DCP
International premiere
Director Bobbie Peers / Screenplay Bjørn Olaf Johannessen / Dir. of Photography Jakob Ingimundarson / Music Nicholas Sillitoe / Editor Jon Endre Mørk / Art Director Guri Giæver / Producer Maria Ekerhovd / Production Mer Film AS / Coproduction Migma Film AB, Neue Road Movies / Cast August Diehl, Sara Hjort Ditlevsen, Jørgen Langhelle, Alexandra Rapaport / Sales Playtime / Contact Norwegian Film Institute

About the director

Bobbie Peers (b. 1974, Norway) graduated from the London International Film School in 1999 and has since worked as a director, writer and illustrator. His short film Sniffer won the Palme d’Or for Best Short Film at Cannes 2006 and screened a year later in Karlovy Vary’s Forum of Independents. Peers also directed the shorts Down Under (2007), Spandex Man (2007) and The Croquet Match (2008), as well as numerous commercials and television series. The Disappearing Illusionist is his feature film debut.