22/06/2023 - After having world-premiered at SXSW, the first English-language film by the Icelandic director is set to be released across Europe during the summer

Sverrir Gudnason, Simon Manyonda, Timothy Spall, Lydia Leonard and Ella Rumpf in Northern Comfort

A rag-tag bunch of fearful flyers are about to complete a high-end therapeutic course to overcome their fear of flying. The course's final challenge is an ‘exposure flight’: a return short-haul flight during which they will face their phobia, and in theory, conquer their fear. The group consists of a property developer in her 40s, a social-media ‘influencer’ couple in their late 20s and a former SAS-serviceman turned crime-novelist in his 60s. The destination turns out to be Iceland and the flight ends up being a complete nightmare. When the group finally steps onto solid ground, their anxiety levels are off the charts and the idea of taking a flight back home to London becomes an unbearable prospect. As their intended flight is repeatedly delayed, the airline invites the group to wait out the impending storm in a remote luxury ‘wellness’ hotel somewhere in the bleak, wild moonscape of the Reykjanes peninsula.

This is the synopsis of Northern Comfort [+see also:
trailer
film profile], the English-language debut by Icelandic director Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson, which was world-premiered at the SXSW Film Festival back in March and is now set to be released across Europe during the summer. Previous films by the filmmaker include the Venice Orizzonti entry and Icelandic Oscar submission Under the Tree [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson
film profile] as well as Either Way [+see also:
trailer
interview: Hafstein Gunnar Sigurdsson
interview: Hilmar Gudjônsson - Shootin…
film profile], which was remade into Prince Avalanche by US director David Gordon Green.

Boasting an international cast led by Timothy Spall, Sverrir Gudnason, Ella Rumpf, Lydia Leonard and Simon Manyonda, the film was written by the director, alongside Halldór Laxness Halldórsson and Tobias Munthe, and is a production staged by Grímar Jónsson for Iceland's Netop Films, in co-production with Mike Goodridge for the UK's Good Chaos and Sol Bondy and Fred Burle for Germany's ONE TWO Films. International sales are being handled by France's Charades.

Check out our exclusive trailer below:

(Translated from Spanish)