THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD 16 FEB 2015 - COPENHAGEN SHOOTING VICTIM FINN NORGAARD MADE 'BOOMERANG BOY' DOCU IN OZ

One of the victims of a shooting spree in the Danish capital Copenhagen, believed to be an act of terrorism by a lone Islamic gunman, is a filmmaker who once made a documentary in Australia about a junior boomerang throwing champion. Finn Norgaard, 55, died after being shot in the chest at a gathering in a cafe in Copenhagen to discuss Islam and free speech in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shooting in January. Also present at the gathering on the weekend was the Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who received death threats after depicting the head of the Prophet Muhammad on a dog in a series of cartoons in 2007. Vilks was not harmed in the attack. The means of Norgaard's death was especially cruel, wrote a friend of many decades standing, as Norgaard had had surgery some years ago to correct a hole in his heart. Norgaard was a documentary filmmaker who worked for the Danish Broadcasting Corporation from 1989 to 2001, before becoming a partner in the independent production house Filmselskabet. In 2004, he came to Australia to make the documentary Boomerang-Drengen (aka Boomerang Boy), about 13-year-old Trent Carter, a Melbourne teen who had ambitions of becoming the world champion of boomerang throwing. Trent succeeded in that aim and later went on to win a junior world championship in table tennis. In 2009, Norgaard made the film En anden vej: Historien om fire nydanskere og en koncernchef – which roughly translates as "Another way: The story of four Danes and a CEO" – in which he put a Danish businessman and four criminals from immigrant backgrounds together to see if they could find a way past the stereotypes and assumptions that plague modern society. Norgaard's Facebook page illustrates his continued concern with defending free speech and combating the divisions threatening to tear apart the multiculturalism that has been the hallmark of many advanced Western societies in the past few decades. His most recent post, on February 6, was to an article in which an imam claimed there was no prohibition in the Koran against depictions of the Prophet Muhammad. Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/copenhagen-shooting-victim-finn-norgaard-made-boomerang-boy-documentary-in-australia-20150216-13fmic.html#ixzz3S9QAs4h0