Tancred Ibsen

Tancred Ibsen received a military education and became an airman before filmmaking attracted him to Hollywood in 1923. He worked in the MGM studios in Hollywood for two years, honing his skills and learning from greats such as Victor Sjöström and King Vidor, before returning to Scandinavia to continue his career in Denmark and Sweden, before embarking on his long period of achievement in the Norwegian film industry.

Ibsen made his debut as a feature film director with the comedy-drama The Big Christening, which was the first ever Norwegian film with sound. During the course of his career Ibsen directed 22 feature films (many of which he also wrote the screenplay for), and two documentaries. Many of his films, such as Tramp (1937), Gjest Baardsen (1939), and The Secretive Apartment (1948) are true classics of Norwegian cinema, and earned Ibsen a place among the all-time greats of Norwegian directors.

His final film as a director was The Wild Duck from 1963, based on his grandfather Henrik Ibsen's play by the same title. He also had as a career-ambition to make the first Norwegian film-version of the play, and national cultural treasur, "Peer Gynt", but sadly he never got to realize this before he passed away in 1978.

Norsk Filminstitutt