Crimes of the Future takes as its point of departure the Danish film adaptation of the Norwegian modernist novel Hunger by Knut Hamsun, published in 1888. Set in late 19th-century Kristiania (now Oslo), Hamsun’s book recounts the adventures of a starving young writer whose sense of reality is giving way to a delusionary existence on the darker side of a modern metropolis. In its opening lines, Kristiania is described as a ‘wondrous city that no one leaves before it has made its marks upon him.’ The film adaptation, produced in 1966 and directed by Danish filmmaker Henning Carlsen, is considered a modernist masterpiece, for which actor Per Oscarsson won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival for his performance. However, the film is no longer well known to Norwegian or international audiences.

Through conversations with an array of Norwegian writers, filmmakers, psychiatrists, artists and more, Izquierdo investigates the impact of both the film and novel on generations of Norwegian culture and artistic practice, while exploring how it could speak to what it means to be an artist today. The film also revisits historic locations that still existed during the 1966 film production, but which have vanished or are almost unrecognisable today. In this way, Crimes of the Futurebecomes a portrait of a capital city that is undergoing significant renewal and displacement.

«Where Memories Are Made» is a week-long film program organised by osloBIENNALEN in cooperation with Kunstnernes Hus.