Bent Hamer
Bent Hamer (born 1956) is a Norwegian filmmaker whose dryly comic, quietly observed character studies have made him one of Scandinavia's most distinctive directors. Born in Sandefjord, he studied film theory and literature at Stockholm University and the Stockholm Film School, and founded the production company BulBul Film in Oslo in 1994. His debut Eggs (1995) premiered at Cannes and took the FIPRESCI Prize at Toronto; he went on to make Kitchen Stories (2003) — Norway's submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, a deadpan piece about Swedish home-economics researchers observing Norwegian bachelors — and Factotum (2005), an English-language adaptation of Charles Bukowski with Matt Dillon. His subsequent films include O'Horten and 1001 Grams. Critics have compared the gentle absurdism of his protagonists with Jacques Tati.