Bent Hamer, Pal Hagen and Face2Face host David Peck talk about their new film The Middle Man, precise poetic comedy, empathy and philosophy, existential

angst, satire and rich literary material, and why humour is a way through which we can begin to understand each other.

Trailer

Synopsis:

The Middle Man is a darkly humorous social satire which takes place in a small town that is experiencing an epidemic of accidents and deaths. The town is run by “The Commission” - the Sheriff, the Doctor and the Pastor - who decide to hire a ‘Middle Man’ whose sole responsibility will be to inform the family when an unfortunate incident occurs.

Frank Farrelli is a quiet, thoughtful man who proves perfect for the job. He takes his new role on with gusto and quickly becomes the town’s beacon of bad news. But the pressures of the job and a budding new romance overwhelm Frank. To ease his burden, he calls in a ‘favour’ that ends up in a horrifying yet oddly amusing murder.

About Bent Hamer:

Norwegian director, writer, producer and owner of the film production company BulBul Film. After studying law at The University of Oslo he worked for some years as sailboat skipper abroad before he completed his education in Film Theory (uncompleted Doctoral Program) and Literature at the University of Stockholm, and in film making at Stockholms Filmskola.

Bent’s feature films include the award winning O’Horten Factotum, Kitchen Stories and Eggs which all had their international premiere at Cannes International Film Festival. 1001 Grams, O’Horten, and Kitchen Stories were Norway’s entry for The Academy Award.

Bent has served several film festival juries including Tokyo IFF, San Sebastian IFF, Sundance Institute/Sundance IFF and Karlovy Vary IFF.

In 2013 Bent was awarded the Norwegian Amanda Honorary Award for his complete work.

Image Copyright and Credit: Bent Hamer, BulBul Film, The Film Farm & Pandora Films.

F2F Music and Image Copyright: David Peck and Face2Face. Used with permission.

For more information about David Peck’s podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here.

With thanks to Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

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