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Icelandic director Baltasar Kormákur’s latest film Djúpið (The Deep) has missed out on an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, as confirmed at the official nomination announcement ceremony this afternoon.
The nominations were announced at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills by actor Seth MacFarlane and actress Emma Stone and include A Royal Affair, (Denmark), Amour (Austria), Kon-Tiki (Norway), No (Chile) and War Witch (Canada).
The Deep, which had widely been tipped to secure the prestigious nomination, recounts the 1984 sinking of a fishing trawler in the forbidding seas off Vestmannaeyjar (the Westman Islands) and the remarkable survival of one of its crew members, Guðlaugur Friðþórsson.
The film was selected to represent Iceland after winning against Borgríki (City State), Frost, Hetjur Valhallar – Þór (Legends of Valhalla: Thor) and Svartur á leik (Black’s Game) and was among 71 films on the final list of eligible submissions for the Best Foreign Film category for this year's awards. The Deep was among nine films shortlisted in January.
Two Icelandic films have been nominated for an Academy Award in the past, Children of Nature (Börn náttúrunnar; 1991) directed by Friðrik Þór Friðriksson and the short film The Last Farm (Síðasti bærinn: 2004) by Rúnar Rúnarsson.
The 85th Academy Awards will be held on February 24.
Click here to read more about The Deep and here for our review of the film.
ZR
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The 2013 June-July issue of Iceland Review is out. Themed ‘We Are Young’ the magazine celebrates the arrival of summer by interviewing young energetic Icelanders who excel in art, sports, business and politics—and Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, the youngest PM in the republic’s history and the world’s youngest ruling state leader. Click here to take a look at a selection of the current issue and here to subscribe to the magazine.
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REVIEWS
amiina
The road to Höfn, a 1,690-person harbor town by the fjord Hornafjörður, is lined with reindeer. Whole herds of the wild horned animals rest peacefully on withered pastures, grace next to sheep and horses and bounce along the road. Soon, Vatnajökull, Europe’s largest glacier and the region’s biggest attraction, comes into view. Looming over Höfn, its outlet glaciers flow down from the mountains on which the bright white icecap rests.
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