The films of Icelandic director Baltasar Kormakur are a big favorite around these parts which is not so strange because the man has pulled Icelandic filmmaking out of its slump it's been in for decades. His most recent film, Jar City, Iceland's biggest film ever, won the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival recently and it's our submission to next years Oscars. No sooner had Jar City hit the theaters over here earlier this year when he started working on a new film, this time with a original script by himself and co-writer Olafur Egill. The film, called The Groom, is a side project of a theater production using the work of Anton Chekhov as a base. The resulting film, which reunites the director with most of his Reykjavik 101 cast, revolves around a middle aged man, in a serious state of middle life crisis, who desides to marry a girl, much younger than him and how the memories of his late wife might disrupt the whole process. The film is described as a comedy/drama and is in editing right now so the whole thing came together rather quickly. The production company Blue Eyes is hoping to premier the film early next year. But wait there's more.
Now while Baltasar is editing his film he is also starring as one of the leads in a new crime thriller called "Reykjavik - Rotterdam". The film, written by Arnaldur Indridason (author of the Jar City novel) and director Oskar Jonasson. Now Oskar Jonasson directed one of Iceland's most beloved comedy Sodoma Reykjavik, released in the states as Remote control, and has mostly done comedies in the past but this time he's tackling the thriller form with the help of Arnaldur which is our biggest selling author and one of the few over here to write crime fiction. The film is about a man, resently released from prison, who has to help out his brother who has been getting death threats and the two of them make a fatefull journey to Rotterdam. Not much else is known about the plot of the film but I'm hoping to read the script soon.
The film is currently shooting here in Reykjavik and I don't know when it will be released, I'm guessing middle or late next year. But I bellive this could be something good because of the stellar team behind it who have done good stuff in the past. But on the other hand thrillers have had rather sad history over here quality vise but we'll see.
Great write-up, Swarez, thank you. I had the great pleasure of interviewing Baltasar in Toronto after enjoying Jar City and then the great horror of realizing I had inadvertently erased our interview before uploading it to my computer. Arrrrgh. Ah well.... Your post covers most of what we talked about so now I don't feel so bad. Twitch prevails.
Thus far, for me, Kormákur is a perfect 3/3 (admittedly, I've not caught The Sea yet). I seem to be in the minority about A LITTLE TRIP TO HEAVEN (love it, every frame!). It's good to see Jar City getting as much love as 101 Reykjavík.