‘Touch’ Father/Son Team Discuss Iceland’s Mesmerizing Oscar Entry

Icelandic filmmaker Baltasar Kormákur (Adrift, Beast, Everest) has crafted a touching, bittersweet love story/suspense drama that takes the viewer on a non-linear journey across three countries and towards an ultimately sublime experience. Touch, based on the novel by Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson (who also co-wrote the script with Kormákur), follows Kristófer and his life-altering path in the summer of 1969 as well as his search for a lost love right as the 2020 pandemic is beginning. Kristófer is played by Pálmi Kormákur, the director’s son in ’69 and renown Icelandic actor Egill Olafsson in 2020.

When we first meet young Kristófer, he’s an activist student frustrated with the current administration’s anti-protest policies and, after getting a job in a Japanese restaurant as a dishwasher, he changes courses. “I’m quitting because the school is ruled by oppressive conservatives,” he tells a fellow student. His decision is aided by encountering the restaurant owner’s daughter, Miko (Kôki), and pretty soon a romance begins. Miko is hibakusha,” an atomic bomb survivor from Hiroshima told, by her father, that she must never have children, believing the child would be deformed. One day, Miko vanishes without a trace, along with her father.

Decades later, older Kristófer, in the early stages of dementia, decides to leave his home in Reykjavik, despite lockdown protocols, and travels to London, and then Japan to seek the whereabouts of Miko.

The film deftly crosscuts both stories creating a mesmerizing, poignant narrative about love, loss, prejudice, redemption and forgiveness.

The elder Kormákur has worked in theater, film and TV as an actor, producer, writer and director.

He began his career as a thesp for Iceland’s National Theatre, ultimately directing many projects there. He, then, began acting in feature films. He also founded his own theater company, The Air Castle, where he produced and directed many well-received play and musicals.

In 1999, he founded Blueeyes, a film production company with his wife Lilja Pálmadóttir. His celebrated filmography, both, blockbuster and indie, includes, 101 Reykjavik (2000), The Sea (2002), Jar City (2006), Contraband (2012), 2 Guns (2013), Everest (2015), The Oath (2016), Adrift (2018) and, most recently, Beast (2022). He’s also created streaming content, most notably, Katla, an Icelandic mystery-drama, which premiered on Netflix in 2021. Up next, he’s filming Apex with Charlize Theron and Taron Egerton.

His son, Pálmi is a Royal Academy of Art Visual Arts student who appeared in small roles in numerous films as a child (including his father’s), but this is his first major in a feature film.

Touch is Iceland’s International Feature Oscar submission and Kormákur’s fifth directorial entry via Iceland. He made the short list in 2012 with The Deep.

Iceland has been nominated once in 1991 for Children of Nature. This is the country’s 45th submission.

Touch was released by Focus Features earlier this year.

The Contending had the pleasure of speaking with both father and son about their collaboration.