Premier of "Kurt blir grusom"

Dan grew his own mustache for his
Kurt video in Intermediate Norwegian at St. Olaf.

In our third-semester Norwegian courses at St. Olaf College, we have used the children's novel Kurt quo vadis by Erlend Loe as a supplement to the textbook Stein på stein. The students love the characters, the use of language, and the humor in the book, and everyone can identify with Kurt's struggle to find a job that makes him feel important and equal to his wife, who is an architect, and to their friends, who are doctors, lawyers, teachers, etc. At the end of the semester, we always have the students divide up into groups and create a video based on two of the chapters from the book. On the last two days of class, we watch the videos to review the main events in the book, share our work with one another, and celebrate the end of the semester. Those days are a highlight for everyone, students and teachers alike. Two years ago, inspired by inquiries from campus security about what our students were doing using the dormitory vacuums outside, my colleague Marte and I wrote a parodi of the Kurt story and showed it to the students on the last day.



Kurt blir grusom på film (Source: Aftenposten, Dag Kjørholt, 06.05. 08)
For the past two years, there has been an animated film in the works that is based on two of the books in the Kurt series, Kurt blir grusom and Kurt quo vadis. Currently several well-known Norwegian actors and comedians are doing the final recordings of the voices for the Kurt characters, and recently they met with the press to discuss the film, which is scheduled for release on Oct. 31, 2008. See the article from Aftenposten above and the trailer from YouTube.