The English-language thriller directed by Óskar Þór Axelsson is based on the eponymous best-selling novel by renowned Icelandic crime author Arnaldur Indriðason.

Munich-based Beta Cinema will kick start pre-sales at the Cannes Marché du Film of the ambitious Icelandic/German co-production starring Vivian Ólafsdóttir (It Hatched), Jack Fox (Riviera, Sandition) Iain Glen (Game of Thrones, Downton Abbey), Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (Trapped, The Minister), Wotan Wilke Möhring (Valkyrie, Sløborn), and Atli Óskar Fjalarsson (Sparrows).

Filming just wrapped at Iceland’s spectacular Langjökull glacier and will resume at MMC Studios in Cologne, Germany.

The story adapted for the screen by Marteinn Þórisson (Silent Witness, Jack Taylor), takes us from modern Iceland to America and Nazi Germany at the end of WW2. It centres on young Icelandic lawyer Kristin, who gets drawn into the vortex of an international conspiracy when she receives grainy footage of an old airplane wreck, recently revealed by the melting of one of Iceland’s largest glaciers. The old German WW2 plane not only brings ruthless criminals onto the scene, but also CIA vice director William Carr, who had been secretly trying to remove the wreck.

The film is produced by Tinna Proppé and Hilmar Sigurðsson of Reykjavík-based Sagafilm, alongside Dirk Schweitzer and Anita Elsani of Splendid Entertainment, Germany, in co-production with MMC Fiction and ZDF. It received support from the Icelandic Film Centre, Nordisk Film & TV Fond, Film und Medienstiftung NRW and Deutscher Filmförderfonds. Sam Film will release it in Icelandic cinemas, and Splendid Film in Germany.

Iceland’s Sagafilm is minority-controlled by Beta Film Studios, a subsidiary of Jan Mojto’s German Beta Film Group, which also oversees the feature film sales entity Beta Cinema.