Life in a Fishbowl is Iceland's Oscar entry
- Baldvin Z’s local blockbuster enters the race for the Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign-language Film
Closing in on 50,000 domestic admissions – 15% of the country’s population – after 19 weeks in the charts for Sena Distribution, Icelandic director Baldvin Z’s Life in a Fishbowl [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] has been named Iceland’s candidate for the Oscar nomination for Best Foreign-language Film by the Icelandic Film and TV Academy.
Iceland has twice before qualified for a nomination – in 1992, when Fridrik Thor Fridriksson’s Children of Nature competed for Best Foreign-language Feature, and in 2006, when Runar Runarsson’s The Last Farm was considered for Best Live-action Short.
“The best Icelandic film in history,” declared the country’s leading daily, Fréttabladid, after the 16 May opening in Reykjavik of Baldvin Z’s (for Zophoníasson) multiple-narrative drama involving three people living in pre-crisis Iceland, with Thorsteinn Bachmann, Hera Hilmarsdòttir and Thor Kristjánsson in the leads.
The meeting of a struggling single mother working at a nursery school and as a prostitute on the side, an ex-footballer fast-tracking his career in the banking world and a troubled writer turned full-time drunk has a lasting effect on all their lives.
Scripted by Z and Birgir Örn Steinarsson, Life in a Fishbowl was produced by Júlíus Kemp and Ingvar Thordarson of the Icelandic Film Company, with Finland’s Solar Films, the Czech Republic’s Axman Production and Sweden’s Harmonica Films. It had its international premiere at the Toronto Film Festival.
Did you enjoy reading this article? Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox.