N orwegian filmmaker Bent Hamer is a generous man. At the end of our interview, while waiting for the next journalist to arrive, Hamer began putting together media kits that were piled up on a desk to be sorted out by the staff of his film's promotion company. Told not to bother, he kept at it with a grin, saying "I have to do everything."
And indeed, he is no stranger to multitasking: Hamer is a director, writer and producer. After making shorts and documentaries, Hamer founded the production company BulBul Film in 1994 in Oslo. He has released three feature films in Japan since then, including 2003's delightful "Kitchen Story," a droll tale about the friendship between two old men and his first English-language film, "Factotum" (2005), an adaptation of Charles Bukowski's book of the same name. In his latest film, "O' Horten," which will be released Feb. 21, Hamer returns to his homeland to tell another offbeat tale of a lonely, aging man.
The film follows Odd Horten, who, after working as a train driver for 40 years, faces retirement. On his last day of work, the 67-year-old Horten, for the first time in his career, oversleeps and misses his last ride. As a train driver, he has led an orderly life plying the route between Oslo and Bergen, but now, with no timetable to follow, Horten is lost. Having no wife or children or social life of which to speak, he wanders around Oslo and encounters quirky people who inspire him to create a new life for himself.