Baltasar Kormakur’s ‘Touch’ Selected As Iceland’s International Feature Oscar Entry

EXCLUSIVE: Baltasar Kormakur’s Icelandic box office hit Touch has been chosen as the country’s International Feature Oscar entry. This marks the fifth time that the filmmaker is repping Iceland in the category.

Touch is based on the Icelandic best-selling novel by Ólafur Jóhann Ólafssonand and is co-written by Ólafsson and Kormákur. 

Focus Features has rights in all markets outside Iceland, where, in July, it became the highest-grossing movie of the year. Focus released the romantic drama in theaters on July 12, with a $1.1M North American gross so far, and $2.4M global to date.

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, Kristofer had fallen in love with Miko, whose father owned the Japanese restaurant where they both worked. But at the height of their whirlwind affair, Miko abruptly vanished. As panic about the virus spreads around the world, Kristofer sets out to find his soulmate, resolving to follow her trail wherever it might lead— even back to Miko’s birthplace of Hiroshima — before his memories are lost forever in time.

The film features a robust cast of performers including, Egill Ólafsson, Kōki, Pálmi Kormákur, Masahiro Motoki, Yoko Narahashi, Meg Kubota and Tatsuya Taga.

Kormakur told Deadline at the Taormina premiere in July, “I’m always hoping a film like this gives you an opportunity to do something more dramatic. I want to develop as a filmmaker and a human being.”

The Icelandic Academy Selection Committee said, “Touch is at the same time epic and a truly human story about deep feelings, love, regret, and the small moments in every man‘s life, which become important when looked at in retrospect. The film is a fascinating narrative about humanity, the coming together of disparate cultures, and the search for answers to ever pressing questions. The details and fate of man‘s life are woven together into a seamless whole.”

RVK Studios’ Kormákur and Agnes Johansen produced Touch alongside Good Chaos’ Mike Goodridge.