Nils Gaup

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Nils Gaup (born April 12, 1955) is a Sámi film director from Norway.

[edit] Career

Gaup was born in Kautokeino, Finnmark County in Northern Norway. He first intended to become an athlete but from 1974 to 1978 he went to drama school and studied at the Beaivváš Sámi Theatre in Kautokeino. He also founded the first Sami language theatre ensemble .

After acting in several movies he came to prominence in 1987 by directing the Norwegian film Ofelaš (international English title The Pathfinder). It was the first full-length movie with all dialogs in Sami, the native language of Lapland. This movie earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign language film. After that he made the Disney-financed movie Haakon Haakonsen (Shipwrecked), based on the youth adventure novel "Haakon Haakonsen. En norsk Robinson" (Haakon Haakonsen. A Norwegian Robinson) by Norwegian author O. V. Falck-Ytter. In 1993 he shot his most successful film Hodet over vannet (Head Above Water). For this film he won the Amanda Award (the most important Norwegian Film Award). In 1996 it was remade as an American movie with Cameron Diaz and Harvey Keitel in the leading roles. His next movie was Tashunga (also known as North Star), a project by Christopher Lambert. This film failed both at the box office and at the critics.

Gaup was previously scheduled as director for the Kevin Costner-movie Waterworld. But due to the exploding costs he left the project.

His most recent film is Kautokeino-opprøret which is about the Kautokeino rebellion of 1852 of the town with the same name in Norway. It is the true story of the riots of the Sami people against the church and state domination on alcohol sale.