08/09/2009

The UK star actress Kate Winslet has agreed to lend her voice for the narration of the documentary film about autism The Sunshine Boy, directed by veteran Icelandic filmmaker Fridrik Thór Fridriksson.

Fridriksson spent four years on the project, two of them following producer Margret Dagmar Ericsdottir (Frontier Filmworks) as she travels from Reykjavik to London and Austin, Texas, to meet world experts on autism in the hope to understand her severely autistic 11-year-old son Keli. The filmmaker who witnessed the fantastic progress of Keli as he started to communicate, under the guidance of US/Indian therapist Soma Mukhophadhyay said that Sunshine Boy is probably the most important film in his life. Iceland top singer Björk and the band Sigur Ros have contributed to the film.

The Sunshine Boy will have its international launch at the upcoming Toronto International Film Festival in the Real to Reel section. Meanwhile, Fridriksson is putting the final touches on his latest feature film, Mamma Gógó, a very personal film inspired by his own mother who suffers from Alzheimer disease. "Between Alzheimer and autism, I’m totally stuck in my head," said the director with his usual sense of humor at the last New Nordic Films market in Haugesund where Mamma Gógó was introduced as a ‘work in progress’. The film is produced by Gudrun Edda Thorhannesdottír(Icelandic Producer on the Move 2009) with Filmhuset in Norway and Pandora in Germany.