July 9, 2024

‘Touch’: Exclusive Video Interview with Baltasar Kormákur and Pálmi Kormákur

Item: ‘Touch’: Exclusive Video Interview with Baltasar Kormákur and Pálmi Kormákur
Author: Edward Douglas

by Edward Douglas

Check out more of CinemaDaily US’ video interviews on our YouTube channel

Icelandic filmmaker Baltasar Kormákur has been making movies both in his home country and in Hollywood for decades, but his latest film, Touch, is something that hits a lot closer to home. It’s not just because it begins in Iceland and is based on an Icelandic novel (by Olaf Olafsson), but also because it’s more like the Icelandic films he made before teaming with Mark Wahlberg for Contraband in 2012, which took his career on a whole different path.

The film stars Icelandic actor and singer Egill Ólafsson as the elderly Kristófer, a restaurateur who learns he has a chronic illness. It’s suggested by his doctor that he closes any unfinished business, which in his case, involves a former love who vanished when he was quite young. Baltasar’s son Pálmi Kormákur plays the younger Kristófer, who we watch as he gets a job at a Japanese restaurant in London in the early ‘70s, where he meets and falls for Miko (played by Japanese model/singer Kôki). We watch this relationship unfold via flashback as the older Kristófer tries to find answers in the present day.

Cinema Daily US had a chance to speak with Baltasar and Pálmi over Zoom a few weeks back to learn what got the director interested in doing something different from his American films, casting his son in a major role, which made it easier to work together, and what it was like working with Kôki and some of the other Japanese actors. (Also, look for Cinema Daily US’s interview with Kôki very soon.)