Two Icelandic film artists make Berlinale official selection
Writer/director Maria Solrun and actor Tómas Lemarquis will represent Iceland in the official selection of this year’s Berlin International Film Festival (also known as the Berlinale), which will be held February 15–25. The German film Adam, which is Maria Solrun’s second feature, has been selected for the Generation section, while Tómas Lemarquis stars in Touch Me Not, a Romanian feature by Adina Pintilie, which will have its world premiere in the festival’s main competition.
Adam
Adam was written and directed by Maria Solrun and produced by Maria Solrun, Jim Stark, and Magnús Maríuson, who incidentally is the son of the director and plays the film’s leading role.
As mentioned above, Adam is Maria Solrun’s second feature. Her first film, Jargo, also premiered at the Berlinale, in 2004.
Adam tells the story of a techno musician, who after years of hospitalizations for alcoholism makes her son swear that he will never let her spend the rest of her life in an institution. When her doctors diagnose her with permanent brain damage, 20-year-old Adam, who is deaf and completely on his own, must decide whether to break his promise to his mother or help her die. Only after a chance online meeting with a girl pregnant with someone else’s child does Adam find a way out of his dilemma.
Disclaimer: Maria Solrun works as a consultant for the Icelandic Film Centre. Adam is solely a foreign production made without any support from the IFC or Icelandic production companies. No employees of the Icelandic Film Centre took part in the production of the film or its promotion during the postproduction stage.
Tómas Lemarquis
Touch Me Not, starring Icelandic actor Tómas Lemarquis, was written and directed by Romania’s Adina Pintilie, and is her first feature.
Touch Me Not is a cinematic exploration of intimacy that questions our preconceived ideas about it. It is a film that deals with how human beings can touch each other in the most unexpected ways. Searching beyond taboos, it is a hybrid work that mixes fiction and nonfiction as it pursues the emotional journeys of several characters in their search for intimacy.
Tómas Lemarquis made his breakthrough when he starred in Dagur Kári’s Noi the Albino in 2003. More recently he has appeared in Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer and in Hollywood productions such as Blade Runner 2049, X-Men: Apocalypse, and 3 Days to Kill. In Iceland he has also starred in the 2009 feature December and will soon appear as one of the leads in the upcoming film Mihkel. He has also played prominent roles in films and TV series throughout Europe, including in Germany, France, Denmark, and Spain.