Margreth Olin’s documentary Doing Good (Mannen fra Snåsa) about a healer and living legend in Norway and Tale of a Lake by Finnish directors Marko Röhr and Kim Saarniluoto are getting phenomenal audience responses and sitting at number two and three in their respective territories admissions table.

Doing Good (Mannen fra Snåsa) features the 89 year old Joralf Gjerstad –known as ‘the man with the warm hands’ who has been visited over the last 65 years by over 50,000 Norwegians for his healing gift. The film produced and directed by the award-winning Margreth Olin (Raw Youth) was launched wide on 104 screens by Norsk Filmdistribusjon and made history as the biggest Norwegian doc opener with 22,804 admissions over the weekend.

Yesterday the film had reached 45,236 and was neck and neck with 20th Century Fox’s The Revenant that opened the same day. “We had great expectations for this film since we saw it last fall. But we never dared to dream that it should open so strongly,” said Frida Ohrvik, head of Norsk Filmdistribusjon. The film is playing well across the country and in smaller cities. It’s hard to tell where it will end, but 100,000 visits should be within reach. This is our first Norwegian film this year so it's a great start for us. We are extremely pleased and new opportunities to get on board Norwegian films are opening up.”

Doing Good is competing in Göteborg for the Dragon Award-Best Documentary (read our interview with Margreth Olin to be published on Friday February 5).

Tale of a Lake (Järven Tarina) produced by MRP Matila Röhr Productions climbed from number 3 to 2 in its second weekend on Finnish screens with 47,401 tickets sold and had a stronger admission per screen average than Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, released the same day (108 vs 81). The hymn to Finland’s land of lakes had the best opening for a nature documentary in Finland, even surpassing the previous hit Tale of a Forest that ended up with 88,812 admissions.

Sales agent Levelk is handling Tale of a Lake and screening it at the Nordic Film Market in Göteborg. Tale of a Forest was sold to more than 30 territories and got a theatrical release in Korea, Germany, Australia, Italy and Switzerland.

Two questions to producer/director Marko Röhr:

Tale of a Forest was made over a 7 year period. How long did you work on Tale of a Lake and what were the biggest challenges during production?
MR: We filmed Tale of a Lake in a period of 3 years. Our Director of Photography Teemu Liakka was in charge of the shootings and he had all together seven camera units to assist him. Teemu worked with me both underwater and on the surface and also long periods as a nature photographer. The other camera units concentrated just on certain specific things, such as northern lights, nesting birds, etc. We filmed altogether 600 days and produced 700 hours of material. But still, the biggest challenge was the short production period; many events in the nature happen fast, in just one or two days and to complete the scene means you have to wait another year to continue; and you might miss that next year…

Are you working on other Tales of Nature?
MR: I have spent all my life in the nature and I have been free diving now for 45 years, I am afraid there is no turning back! There are so many tales I have in my mind to tell about the nature. But it’s a tough decision to choose the subject when you know the production will take so many years, you really have to love the story you start filming.