Word
In the context of the world we live in today, filled with conflicts and war - an unsure future, with threats of more devastation lying ahead, I want to create a project of hope. Trust in communication and diplomacy are fading in this world, and they are our most important assets.
“Word” will be a visual representation on how we can inspire and collaborate beyond our own era and lifespan. The most prominent voices in literature worldwide will share their experience and their work in this film. From where comes the power of literature? Is it in the making or is it in the sharing?
Inspired by the public artwork “The Future Library” by artist Katie Paterson. A forest in Norway is growing. In 100 years it will become an anthology of books. Every year a writer is contributing a text that will be held in trust, unpublished, until the year 2114.
Planned premiere in 2029.
North of North
North of North invites viewers on a voyage deep into the Arctic, guided by expedition sailor, marine biologist, and adventurer Andreas B. Heide aboard his sailboat Barba. Combining a captivating journey with breathtaking imagery, the film offers audiences a rare, poetic perspective on one of the planet’s most remote and fragile frontiers.
With one-of-a-kind access to the pristine polar wilderness, North of North captures extraordinary encounters with blue whales, orcas, and polar bears, while revealing the profound environmental shifts reshaping the region. Far from a typical nature film, it weaves together science, adventure, and reflection, offering a timely, visually stunning meditation on both the challenges and the hopes emerging from the Arctic today. A distinctive blend of exploration and artistry, North of North delivers the kind of high-quality, thought-provoking content people now expect - immersive, urgent, and unforgettable.
Planned premiere in 2028.
The Horse
We are pleased to announce that we have received support from NFI for production of our new documentary film.
Margreth Olin: “This is a film I have been thinking about since I was 16 years old and Fidel ran around me. I didn't know then that I would become a film director, but I saw the film clearly. So dear Fidel, my traveling companion for 29 years, this film is a thank you for all the beauty you opened up to me.”
Immerse yourself in an exploration into the unknown through the eyes of a horse.
This journey reveals how the horse perceives its environment, navigates its place within the herd, and interacts with humans.
A visual prose serving as a tribute to the beauty, mystical power, and profound presence of these magnificent beings.
Planned premiere is the second half of 2027.
Novel debut Song for Mother
We are proud to launch the third edition of Song for Mother. The book has reached a total print run of 10,000 copies. Thank you to all the readers who have made this possible.
Nominated for the Booksellers’ Prize
Margreth Olin’s mother was never like other mothers. Perhaps she should have been an artist herself. She worked at the cooperative store, which was an art in itself. She was filled with song and love.
After thirty years as a filmmaker, Margreth is overwhelmed by life and doesn’t know how to handle it. As always, she goes home to seek advice from her parents. The result is the film Songs of Earth, but the ending is not what she had expected.
Song for Mother is a tender story about lifelong love – for nature, for art, for mother and father.
Get your book in store or online today: Forlag Oktober
The reviewers about the novel
Olin says the following about the reception of the book:
“Dad got a film, mom got a book. In grief, I have felt a strong need to use language to preserve who mom was to me, preserve the snapshots, and stories mom has told me. The book is my love song to mom. I am grateful for how the book is being read, I have received feedback from people who say it is reassuring, that they experience the book as being about their mother. That people want to read a book about love makes me enormously happy.”
“A strong and sharp tribute to mother. An autobiographical novel that stands out in the crowd… When the mother dies, it is as if she ‘cannot find rest anywhere but in memories.’ The mother who read and told stories, sang Elvis and grandfather’s songs. Now she shall have a song. A love song that is poetic realism full of symbols.”
6/6 stars
- Vigdis Moe Skarstein, Adresseavisen
“Olin’s genealogical research is of the deepest kind… [Olin] makes very touching reflections on life with her parents, who ran the cooperative store in the village where Olin grew up. The bonds between generations are at the center. It is warm and heartfelt, especially about the mother, who seems to have been a sparring partner for her artist daughter from the time she wrote her first sentence… It is not just a song to mother that Olin has written, it is a song to the earth and the mountains and the glacier – which seem like different sides of the same coin to her.”
- Helen Hovden Hareide, Klassekampen
“The sentences practically glow with love. The memory of the mother receives an artistic treatment of the most tender kind with this book… It is truly a song to mother that the author has written here, with passion and threads of sorrow… Olin manages to write both exaltedly and down-to-earth about family and the close things.”
- Alf Kjetil Walgermo, Vårt Land
“Warms in the autumn chill… Olin is known for her intimate, personal films. She has a unique eye for the misfits, those who are a bit different, or who don’t quite manage life. She preserves this perspective in her first novel Song for Mother, a love letter to her parents and to the mighty nature that frames their lives… The mother passed her dreams on to her daughter, encouraged her early to write, and Olin writes as she creates images on the canvas, we can see it… The sentences are laconic, like the parents themselves. Warming.”
5/6 stars
- Ellen Sofie Lauritsen, NRK
“A luminous memory book… The love for the parents and the love between the parents shines through the book, all enveloped and woven into the mighty nature of the Oldedalen valley in Nordfjord… Olin portrays a childhood filled with much song and gentle hands… it is delightful to read about so much kindness and love and understanding. There is nothing pompous or sentimental in this writing. Rather, it is the clarity, simplicity, and the fine flow of the sentences that are striking… As a reader, one becomes almost envious, at least deeply moved by all these loving words that flow on the lines of this little book.”
- Turid Larsen, Dagsavisen
“Song for Mother is wise in its straightforward tone and sharply chiseled prose, maturely written by someone who has written incessantly throughout an already long professional life. … has landscape descriptions and dramatic arcs worthy of a critically acclaimed, award-winning filmmaker.”
- Maria Olerud, Morgenbladet
Our latest documentary
Songs of Earth / Fedrelandet
aloysha by Susanne Sundfør
Susanne Sundfør and Margreth Olin started their collaboration with the film Self Portrait about the photo artist Lene Marie Fossen.
Susanne created the original music for the film, including a song for Lene Marie: When the Lord, which is one of Susanne's most played songs on Spotify.
aloysha is one of the songs in the album Blómi. Margreth Olin is the director of the music video.
Anders Jahre Culture Award
Grateful, touched and happy to receive the Anders Jahre Culture Award 2022, together with Deeyah Kahn, Joachim Trier and Nils Gaup. Norways biggest culture award. A great honor to be included in the ranks of artists who have received this award in the past.
Thank you to the award committee and the board of the Anders Jahres Humanitarian Foundation!
Thank you to everyone who has shared their lives in front of the camera.
Thanks to everyone I worked with who made the films possible.
Thanks to my parents and my girls for the love.
And thank you all for a lovely award ceremony!
Chicken & Egg
So grateful and happy to receive the Chicken & Egg Award 2022! Thanks for this recognition! And the opportunity to team up with
five great documentary filmmakers from Brazil, South Africa, Canada and US. Looking forward to develop my new film Songs of Earth together with the Chicken & Egg Family.
Chicken & Egg supports women and gender non-conforming non-fiction filmmakers whose artful and innovative storytelling catalyzes social change. The program envisions an inclusive media industry in which women filmmakers, representing a range of experiences and backgrounds, are fully supported to realize their artistic goals, and to build sustainable and fulfilling careers, says the company statement.
