Karoline Frogner is educated as a photographer, and has through the years come to be one of Norway's foremost documentarists. She is a film director, photographer, author, lecturer and businesswoman, having founded her own production company Integritet Film AS in 2003.
Frogner has worked on numerous films since the early eighties, and made her debut as a filmmaker with A portrait of Anja Breien in 1988. She has since directed numerous shorts, documentaries and documentary dramas, like Times of Darkness (1995), for which she received several international prizes as well as the National Film Award Amanda for Best Documentary. The film tells the story of ten Norwegian women who lost their freedom and was sent to Nazi-Germany's concentration camps during WWII. The film was sold to numerous TV-stations across the world, has been screened at several international film festivals, and was picked up for both American and Japanese distribution.
Through her films Frogner takes a distinct humanistic perspective, displaying a broad commitment for human rights, and a willingness to disclose and advance controversial issues, often touching on political themes such as the treatment of minorities - a topic brought to the forefront in the critically acclaimed Tradra (2004), which also garnered Frogner another Amanda for Best Documentary.
These issues are not only limited to her films, as she has written several books, and held numerous lectures, on issues such as kurdish refugees and the persecution of artists in the former Yugoslavia. Frogner has also taken action outside her artistic outlets and initiated efforts such as a childrens art centre in Bethlehem.
Norsk Filminstitutt
