Photo: Petr Novák, Wikipedia.

In a sunny and warm Italy the highly anticipated film Everest opened the Venice Film Festival yesterday. The last two films to open the festival were Gravity in 2013 and Birdman last year. Everest is made by the only Icelandic director ever to make Hollywood blockbusters, Baltasar Kormakur.

The film is based on a true story of a climbing expedition on Mt. Everest, that is devastated by a severe snow storm. The film has already gotten several reviews. Time Out praised the ‘astonishing’ craft of Kormakur’s 3-D spectacular and The Hollywood Reporter called the movie ‘gripping and immersive’. Peter Bradshaw from Guardian is not as content and says it’s a ‘thriller that’s light on thrills’. Variety and ScreenDaily have also published their reviews.

Updated on the 18th of September

Here are reviews from The Independent, Belfast Telegraph and The Irish Times.

Who is Baltasar Kormakur?

Kormakur is born on the 27th of February to an Icelandic mother, Kristjana Samper, and a Spanish father, Baltasar Samper, both respected artists in Iceland. Baltasar Kormakur started out as an actor and became well-known at a young age, but found passion in directing early on and has since staged plays, directed films and has recently added TV to the equation. Furthermore, he is a very productive producer. You can read about his body of work here and I personally recommend this interview and this one.

Then there are trailers for some of his films. First up is 101 Reykjavik, his directorial debut.

White Night Wedding is loosely based on the play Ivanov by Anton Chekhov. Baltasar also directed the play at the National Theatre of Iceland.

The Deep

2 Guns

Contraband

The TV series Trapped, coming up soon.