TIFF.22 takes off with a lunatic comedy about the fear of flying

Northern Comfort (Iceland / Great Britain / Germany), 2023 will open the 22nd edition of the Transilvania International Film Festival (June 9 – 18, 2023). Directed by Icelandic filmmaker Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson, the film is part of Focus Nordic, a complex programme of this edition that will bring TIFF fans over 40 films, concerts and film-concerts from Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Finland and Sweden.

On Friday, June 9, from 8:45 p.m., thousands of spectators are expected in Piata Unirii with the film crew and other special guests to celebrate the start of a new edition of TIFF, in an evening full of surprises. Tickets for the Opening Gala are also available online.

Sigurðsson tests his dark humor in English for the first time. Nordic Comfort is his first foray out of the Icelandic comfort space, although much of the story takes place there as well. Filmed in England, France and Iceland, the comedy is a race against time through the air and through the mud, an unlikely adventure where anxiety is contagious and paranoia lurks around the corner.

Based on cure like with like concept, flying phobia can be treated with a long flight under the supervision of a guide. At least that’s what the exclusive course, which enrolls a not-heterogeneous group of anxious people, says. But problems arise quickly and escalate surprisingly absurdly. From the cast, absolutely everyone stands out, first because each anxious person is the center of their own universe, and then because we are dealing with exceptional names such as Timothy Spall (one of director Mike Leigh’s favorite actors, protagonist in Secrets and Lies or All or Nothing and laureate at Cannes with an acting award for Mr Turner, but familiar to the general public thanks to the character of Peter Pettigrew in the Harry Potter series), Lydia Leonard, English theater and film actress (The Crown, Ten Percent), Sverrir Gudnason, known to moviegoers for his roles in Falling (2021) and Original (2010), or Björn Hlynur Haraldsson, Icelandic actor who could be seen last year at TIFF in the police comedy Cop Secret.

The film had its world premiere in March at the SXSW Film Festival (USA) and marks the return of Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson to Cluj. His first films, Either Way (2012) and Paris of the North (2015), competed for the Transilvania Trophy, and in 2017 the Icelander returned to TIFF with Under The Tree, a dark comedy released in Venice about the struggle for territory in a suburb Icelandic bourgeois.

“It is by far one of my favorite festivals. I fell in love with TIFF more than ten years ago when I came to Cluj with my debut film. I thank the festival for trusting me and for this long-lasting relationship,” the filmmaker stated.

Northern Comfort will be distributed in Romania by Transilvania Film.

The film is presented at TIFF with the support of Scandinavian Films and Icelandic Film Centre.