Røyneland was born on June 4, 1981, in Lillesand, Aust-Agder, Norway. He completed a screenplay writing study track at the Norwegian Film School in 2010. On Christmas eve of 2010, he was offered the job of assistant to Erik Poppe, and began working full-time for the Norwegian film company Paradox.
Career and awards
Røyneland wrote the short filmsCut Paste and Om Avstand ; co-wrote Tusen ganger god natt ; and, wrote all 26 episodes of the 2013-14 television series Kampen. He also contributed to the internationally recognized and controversial TV seriesOkkupert, which depicted the Russian invasion of Norway. He has won a number of “pitching contests” at film festivals, including a 2011 contest in which he pitched the idea for Kongens Nei. It tells the story of Norway's King Haakon VII's refusal to collaborate with the Nazis when they invaded the country in 1940. The script was written for three years and the film production was delayed due to the cost involved. Filming was also postponed to wait for Jesper Christensen, who played the king, because the actor was busy filming a James Bond film. The King's Choice, which was co-written with Harald Rosenløw Eeg and directed by Erik Poppe, was released in 2016. The King's Choice became Norway's highest grossing film that year and it was seen in theaters by 700,000 of the nation's five million inhabitants. It went on to be shortlisted in the Foreign Language Film category at the Academy Awards. In an interview, Røyneland described how The King's Choice depicted a story of a people living in a war-torn country and how Norway got help from Sweden and the United Kingdom. These, he said, explain the Norwegian mindset towards refugees today. In 2013, Røyneland won the Pitch Competition at the Kosmorama Film Festival with a pitch for a film entitled Confidential Business Proposal, the story of a retired Norwegian widower and veteran who, after being cheated by a Nigeria-based Internet scam, travels to that country to recover his money and finds that the skills he picked up in wartime prove useful in that effort. Røyneland, together with Eeg, won The Kanon Award for Best Script in 2016. At the 2017 Haugesund Film Festival, Røyneland and Eeg also won the Amanda Prize for Best Original Screenplay for The King's Choice. The film received a total of seven Amanda Prizes, breaking the record previously held by another war film, . In the same year, Twigson the Explorer, a film that he co-wrote with Lars Kilevold was also released. Røyneland is also the writer of the upcoming television adaptation of Carsten Jensen's bestselling novelWe, The Drowned, which is being directed by Mikael Salomon.
Personal life
Røyneland lives in Copenhagen with his wife Diana and his children Karl Olav and Ronja.
