An everyday, dull business meeting in an otherwise ordinary Icelandic café becomes the site of a fascinating and gripping moral dilemma in Gunnur Martinsdóttir Schlüter’s Cannes Special Mention winner FÁR (Intrusion). As our protagonist becomes easily distracted during conversations about real estate, a seagull is betrayed by the false allure of the windowpane and is tragically injured; acting as a sudden intrusion and disruption to the commonly-accepted norms of business culture. Highly economical in construction, avoiding any unnecessary musical cues and using a tight, claustrophobic 4:3 frame, Schlüter, also starring in the lead role, creates a fascinating exploration of what happens when the laws of business and the laws of nature combine. Dn had the opportunity to talk to Schlüter about leaving interpretation up to the audience, the benefits of being the lead in her film, and her reaction to winning a Special Mention in the Cannes Short Film Competition.
- 6/8/2023
- by Redmond Bacon
- Directors Notes
Splicing the dark heart of a folk-horror movie into the fluffy body of a rural Icelandic relationship drama yields unexpectedly fertile and darkly comic effects in Valdimir Jóhannsson’s creepy-funny-weird-sad “Lamb,” a film that proves just how far disbelief can be suspended if you’re in the hands of a director — and a cast, and an SFX/puppetry department — who really commit to the bit. Abetted by a performance of unwaveringly invested, freckled seriousness from Noomi Rapace (whose Icelandic certainly sounds convincing to a non-Nordic ear), .
Way out here on this isolated hillside, something is spooking the horses. In a majestic beginning, featuring some quite brilliant animal acting, the camera prowls and plods its point-of-view way through misty fields. Finally this unseen, not-human-but-not-wholly-animal entity, whose unheimlich nature we understand through the huffing and snorting of Ingvar Lunderg and Björn Viktorsson’s endlessly inventive sound design, and through the panicked fleeing of livestock at its approach,...
Way out here on this isolated hillside, something is spooking the horses. In a majestic beginning, featuring some quite brilliant animal acting, the camera prowls and plods its point-of-view way through misty fields. Finally this unseen, not-human-but-not-wholly-animal entity, whose unheimlich nature we understand through the huffing and snorting of Ingvar Lunderg and Björn Viktorsson’s endlessly inventive sound design, and through the panicked fleeing of livestock at its approach,...
- 7/27/2021
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
Fernanda Valadez’s road movie has won the International Competition, Georgis Grigorakis received five awards, and Ameen Nayfeh was the big winner in Meet the Neighbors. The debut feature by Mexican film director-screenwriter-editor Fernanda Valadez, Identifying Features, has won the “Theo Angelopoulos” Golden Alexander for Best Feature Film at the 61st Thessaloniki International Film Festival, which ran from 5-15 November entirely online and attracted more than 80,000 viewers and film-industry professionals. The international jury, comprising Macedonian writer-director Teona Strugar Mitevska, director of the International Film Festival Rotterdam Vanja Kaludjerčić, Greek director Yorgos Tsemberopoulos, Iranian actress Melika Foroutan, and Icelandic sound designer and mixer Björn Viktorsson, handed the €15,000 prize to the Mexican-Spanish road movie, as they were “impressed by the directorial approach to the cinematic form, a form that never overpasses the natural flow of the story, but constantly elevates it to a higher and deeper stance and proposition”. The second...
- 11/17/2020
- Cineuropa - The Best of European Cinema
Grimur Hakonarson’s drama swept to 11 wins in Reykjavik.Scroll down for full list of winners
Rams, a drama directed by Grimur Hakonarson, brought home a grand total of 11 trophies at the Edda Awards, Iceland’s national film prizes, which the Icelandic Film and Television Academy presented over the weekend at a televised gala held in Reykjavik.
The story of two Icelandic brothers and sheep farmers who are forced to put aside their 40-year feud to save their sheep, won Eddas including for film, screenplay, director, cinematography and editing.
Both main actors in Rams - Sigurjon Sighvatsson and Theodor Juliusson - took home Eddas for their roles.
The Eddas for female roles went to two actresses in the TV series Case, Steinunn Olina Thorsteinsdottir and Birna Run Eiriksdottir.
Trapped, an Icelandic mystery television series, won an Edda as the best TV series. The broadcasting rights for Trapped have already been sold to several countries, including France...
Rams, a drama directed by Grimur Hakonarson, brought home a grand total of 11 trophies at the Edda Awards, Iceland’s national film prizes, which the Icelandic Film and Television Academy presented over the weekend at a televised gala held in Reykjavik.
The story of two Icelandic brothers and sheep farmers who are forced to put aside their 40-year feud to save their sheep, won Eddas including for film, screenplay, director, cinematography and editing.
Both main actors in Rams - Sigurjon Sighvatsson and Theodor Juliusson - took home Eddas for their roles.
The Eddas for female roles went to two actresses in the TV series Case, Steinunn Olina Thorsteinsdottir and Birna Run Eiriksdottir.
Trapped, an Icelandic mystery television series, won an Edda as the best TV series. The broadcasting rights for Trapped have already been sold to several countries, including France...
- 2/29/2016
- by andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman) michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
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