Baltasar Kormakur was in a reflective mood at the Taormina Film Festival, where his romantic drama Touch had its Italian premiere this past week. The Icelandic filmmaker compared Touch to his first feature, 2000’s 101 Reykjavik . The former was “a black comedy about love,” while Touch is “a way more sincere approach to love and life,” he said.
Touch , which has just become the biggest film of the year in Iceland at $569,600, is based on Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson’s bestselling 2021 novel, Snerting . It wouldn’t be surprising to see it become the Icelandic entry for the International Feature Oscar race this year — Kormakur already has repped his home country four times, making the shortlist with 2012’s The Deep . Related Stories Casting Charlize Theron To Star In The Thriller ‘Apex’ For Netflix With Baltasar Kormákur Directing Festivals Taormina Artistic Director Marco Müller On Inaugural Turn At The Helm, The ‘White Lotus’ Effect & Whether He Plans To Re-Up The multi-hyphenate, who for years has worked across Iceland and Hollywood, told Deadline that he sparked to Touch ’s source material immediately but only later realized he had a particular connection to the story.
The film follows widower Kristofer (Egil Ólafsson), who, after receiving an early-stage dementia diagnosis at the outset of the Covid pandemic, leaves behind his Reykjavik home hoping to solve the greatest mystery of his life. As a student in London five decades earlier, Krist.