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"You must remember to nourish yourself." Vintage Pictures has released an official trailer for the Icelandic film Agnes Joy, which originally premiered last year and also opened in Iceland last year. After playing at a few other film festivals this year, Iceland has submitted Silja Hauksdóttir's Agnes Joy as their selection for the Best International Film category at the 2020 Academy Awards. The contemporary relationship drama focuses on an Icelandic family, and a disintegrating marriage, starring Katla M. Þorgeirsdóttir. She is worried her daughter, Agnes, will grow up and leave her behind, until a new man moves in next door. Also starring Donna Cruz as the titular Agnes, with Þorsteinn Bachmann, Björn Hlynur Haraldsson, Kristinn Óli Haraldsson, & Anna Kristín Arngrímsdóttir. It's always hard to get a sense of Icelandic films from their trailers, but I am certainly curious about this and the complex family dynamics it explores. Here's the official...

A wilful young girl sent to work on a farm in rural Iceland – a waning traditional Icelandic practice to instill independence in children – uncovers some uncomfortable real-world truths in The Swan (Svanurinn), Ása Helga Hjörleifsdóttir’s serious-in-tone coming-of-age drama based on the 1991 novel of the same name. Milking the country's breathtaking landscapes for all it’s worth, The Swan is a visually stunning product, though at its centre is a more familiar storyline that gently and lyrically probes the sobering realities of early adulthood through the lens of a sensitive child. After being caught for shoplifting, nine-year-old Sól (Gríma Valsdóttir) is uprooted from her coastal home to spend the summer at a countryside farm owned by her aunt Ólöf (Katla M. Þorgeirsdóttir) and...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

What once was a traditional rite of passage for Icelandic children has now become punishment. Whereas her mother probably visited her Aunt Ólöf’s (Katla M. Þorgeirsdóttir) farmland to learn responsibility and work ethic away from the allure of her ocean-side city, young Sól (Gríma Valsdóttir) makes the trek as penance for shoplifting — itself a byproduct more or less attributed to her life’s upheaval upon her parents’ separation. Gone are her friends (although she states she has few), her sisters, her mother (besides the oft letter), and her phone (poor rural reception). It is time for Sól to learn independence by being thrown into the deep end. But while Asa Hjorleifsdottir’s debut The Swan is mostly from her perspective, she’s not the only character unlocking her unfiltered identity.

This film — based on Guðbergur Bergsson’s novel — instead shows how its farm is an unwitting locale for purposeful...