Ólafur Darri Ólafsson joins stellar cast of Summerlight and then Comes the Night

Co-stars include Stella Blómkvist’s Heiða Reed and Happily Never After’s Sveinn Ólafur Gunnarsson.

Summerlight and then Comes the Night (Sumarljós og svo kemur nóttin) is Adalsteins’ sophomore film after the English-language indie road movie End of Sentence, and his first feature in Icelandic.

The ensemble piece is based on author/poet Jón Kalman Stefánsson’s eponymous novel, winner of the 2005 Icelandic Prize for Literature, available so far in 28 territories.

The director who worked closely with Stefánsson on the screen adaptation, said in a statement that the film is ‘woven by bittersweet anecdotes of people fighting ordinary everyday battles in an extraordinary community, on the verge of social sustainability.”

“It is an ensemble piece, in the vein of Federico Fellini’s Amarcord and Robert Altman’s Short Cuts, where the conflicting elements of life, love and death melt into the collective heartbeat of our storyteller, The Village, which sees all and hears all. It is a story of contrasts, of the bright summer light followed by the long dark Nordic winter and how we as humans deal with such clashing forces,” says the director.

Speaking to nordicfilmandtvnews.com, Adalsteins says the film’s four intertwined main stories have ten actors in the main roles, a mix of veteran, newly graduated actors and non-professionals to give a ‘dynamic edge’ to the film.

Established actors include Sveinn Ólafur Gunnarsson (Happily Never After) as The Astronomer, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (Trapped, Fantastic Beasts-The Crimes of Grindelwald) as Kjartan, the proud dairy farmer, Sara Ásgeirsdóttir (Stella Blómkvist, A White, White Day) as his wife Asdis, Heiða Reed (Stella Blómkvist) as Elisabet, the village ‘Venus’, Þórsteinn Bachmann (Let Me Fall) as Gudmundur the head of the village, and Jóhann Sigurðarsson (Trapped) as Hannes, the local police officer.

“We began the rehearsal process with extensive character exploration, which allowed the actors to analyse, digest and construct their roles before running any scenes with others,” explains the director. “In this way I felt the actors were better served in bringing their own sensibility and intuition to their characters before I began fusing people together. “

Summerlight.. is produced by Heather Millard, Lilja Snorradóttir, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson and Adalsteins for the director’s company Berserk Films.

Icelandic Hollywood mogul Sigurjón Sighvatsson who produced Adalsteins’ End of Sentence is executive producer.

The €2.5m film is co-produced by Belgium’s Polar Bear and Sweden’s Vilda Bomben Film, with support from the Icelandic Film Centre, Nordisk Film & TV Fond, Screen Flanders Belgium, the Swedish Film Institute, co-financing from Iceland’s Channel 2/Sýn, Vestfjarðastofa, Öll Vötn til Dýrafjarðar, the Ministry of Industries and Innovation, Tax Shelter Belgium.

Scanbox Entertainment holds Scandinavian rights and Sena Icelandic rights.

The top crew members include Belgian DoP David Williamson (Mont Blanc), editor Tanya Fallenius (Cold Courage, Parents), and Icelandic composer Gunnar Týnes (Chernobyl music editor).

Delegate producer Heather Millard says the 35-day shoot starts this week in a small seaside village in the North West of Iceland. Discussing the Covid-19 health and safety precautions, she said: “We’re shooting in a remote part of the country which helps to keep the set very isolated, combined with the cast and crew being sensible, and the active daily presence of a designated Covid-19 crew member."

The Icelandic premiere is set for the fall 2021.