Godland (2022)
Director: Hlynur Pálmason Run Time: 143 min. Release Year: 2022
Starring: Elliott Crosset Hove, Ída Mekkín Hlynsdóttir, Ingvar E. Sigurðsson, Jacob Ulrik Lohmann, Vic Carmen Sonne
Country: Denmark, Iceland, France, Sweden
Language: Danish, Icelandic
About the film:
Official Selection, 2022 Cannes Film Festival
Official Selection, 2022 Toronto International Film Festival
The struggle between the strictures of religion and our own brute animal nature plays out amid the beautifully forbidding landscapes of remote Iceland in this stunning psychological epic from director Hlynur Pálmason.
In the late nineteenth century, Danish priest Lucas (Elliott Crosset Hove) makes the perilous trek to Iceland’s southeastern coast with the intention of establishing a church. There, the arrogant man of God finds his resolve tested as he confronts the harsh terrain, temptations of the flesh, and the reality of being an intruder in an unforgiving land. What unfolds is a transfixing journey into the heart of colonial darkness attuned to both the majesty and terrifying power of the natural world.
“One of the Year’s Best Films… Pálmason has enlisted us for a voyage of visual splendor, as terrifying as it is breathtaking”
—Carlos Aguilar, IndieWire
The film went on to receive a nomination for Best International Feature at the 2024 Independent Spirit Awards.
About the filmmaker:
Hlynur Pálmason is an artist and filmmaker who was born in 1984 in Iceland. He started out as a visual artist and went on to
pursue an education at the National Film School of Denmark. His first feature Winter Brothers (2017) debuted at the Locarno Film Festival in 2017, and went on to win both the Bodil Award and the Robert Award for Best Danish Film, with Pálmason also winning the Robert Award for Best Director. His second feature A White, White Day (2019) premiered in the International Critics’ Week section at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival and was selected as Iceland’s submission for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards. His third feature Godland (2022) premiered in the Un Certain Regard program at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival and had its North American premiere at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival. His other acclaimed projects include the short films A Day or Two (2012), A Painter (2013), Seven Boats (2014), and Nest (2022).