i-D: Oslo August 31st deals with a profoundly middle class experience. Could you talk about your fascination with this?

Joachim Trier: I think there is a double chain in being from a place in life where, in terms of background, you have choices and not only if you’re a failure have you failed, but you have also failed within the context of having had all these opportunities. I have seen people go down that path and I was interested in an outsider’s point of view from the inside. Anders is a popular guy, he has friends and people around him who think he’s cool, he’s seemingly quite successful, but he’s unable to connect with the people around him, and after a long spell of drug abuse and recently coming out of rehab, there’s a vulnerability to him. I was wondering, is there truth in that view on that middle class reality that surrounds him? I wanted all the details, all the drug details. I had old friends of mine come and share all their experiences with me for this process, but even though these details needed to be correct, it’s not a film necessarily about drug abuse; I was interested in this as a prism to show an environment that I think a lot of people can connect to and somehow to explore a certain kind of loneliness that I’ve seen arise in people’s lives. Somehow you need to find a way to compromise on having an ok life, and Anders has a self-destructive integrity in a way, he’s still a dreamer. Either it’s great or it’s nothing. I thought it was interesting to explore that kind of character.