Figure skating is back in the news thanks to the PyeongChang Olympics and Margot Robbie-starrer “I, Tonya.” Now another controversial skater has a biopic on the way: three-time Olympic champion Sonja Henie. Variety reports that TrustNordisk has secured major pre-sales on Anne Sewitsky’s “Sonja — The White Swan.”
Known internationally for both her skating and Hollywood career — with titles including “Thin Ice” and “My Lucky Star” — Henie eventually lost her studio deal. “‘The White Swan’ depicts [Henie’s] complex relationship with her older brother Leif, who taught her how to ice skate in Oslo and was part of her life in Hollywood,” according to the source. It seems likely that the film will also address accusations that she was a Nazi, an impression held by many after she declared “Heil Hitler” in front of the man himself before skating in Berlin ahead of the 1936 Winter Olympics.
The pic re-teams Sewitsky with “Homesick” star Ine Marie Wilmann and was written by Mette Marit Bølstad (“Nobel”) and Andreas Markusson (“Orange Girl”).
A promo for “The White Swan” dropped at Berlin’s European Film Market, and the movie pre-sold to territories including U.K./Ireland (Thunderbird Pictures), China (DD Dream Intl. Media), and Russia CIS (Capella Film).
“I need to be hooked [to a story]. And I need to find a personal link or inspiration. Without it, there is no point,” Sewitsky told us in 2015. “I’ve been drawn to tell Sonja Henie’s story because she was such an ambivalent character,” the “Happy, Happy” filmmaker explained to Variety. “On one hand, she was a fun-loving, strong, bold woman who was very career-driven and at the same time, she was sometimes lacking empathy as if she was unable to truly love someone apart herself.”