Petter Næss has worked as an actor, screenwriter and director in film, television and theatre since the early eighties. He started his career as a production assistant in television, and - classical dance, tap dance, jazz dance, and method acting - was active as an actor between 1985 and 1996, when he started as a director at the Oslo theater Centralteatret. After directing several successful stage plays, including "Gone with the Woman" and "Elling", which he later would make successful film adaptations of, he made his debut as a film director with the comedy-drama Absolute Hangover in 1999. In 2001 he premiered his next film, Elling (an adaptation of Ingvar Ambjørnsens novel "Blood Brothers", and the stage play previously directed by himself), to unison critical acclaim and some of the best attendance figures at the Norwegian box-office ever. The film won numerous awards at many international film festivals, such as Lübeck, San Sebastian International Film Festival and Würzburg, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In 2005 Næss also directed Love Me Tomorrow, the final film of the Elling-trilogy.
Since his film debut in 1999, Næss has established himself as one of Norways leading directors, and has, in addition to the aforementioned, directed several other films - many of which have become festival favorites and award-winners - both in Norway and abroad. His other films include the youth film Just Bea (2003), the Swedish children's film Leaps and Bounds (2007), Gone with the Woman (2007) and his Hollywood debut Mozart and the Whale (2005). In 2008 he also made a rare return in front of the camera, playing the small role of Capt. Martin Linge in the epic WWII film Max Manus.
Norsk Filminstitutt
