Northern Comfort (2023 film)

A collection of people with a fear of flying have attended a fear of flying course but are left stranded in Iceland after suffering turbulence and engine failure on their aeroplane.[1]

• Timothy Spall as Edward
• Lydia Leonard as Sarah
• Ella Rumpf as Coco
• Sverrir Gudnason as Alphons
• Simon Manyonda as Charles
• Björn Hlynur Haraldsson as Dries
• Rob Delaney as Ralph
• Emun Elliot as Tom
• Gina Bramhill

Sigurdsson told Deadline Hollywood that he was inspired to write the film about participants on a fear of flying course after he “heard about these courses because there was someone close to me that had this problem. I found it quite fascinating and wanted to use it as a vehicle or metaphor to make a film kind of an existential comedy about big themes, like fear and death and life”.[2] Sigurdsson wrote the screenplay with Halldor Laxness Halldorsson and Tobias Munthe. Producers are Grimar Jonsson via Netop Films, with Mike Goodridge of Good Chaos and Sol Bondy and Fred Burle of One Two Films as co-producers. Principal photography on the production started in February 2022. Filming locations included Mývatn, Reykjavik, the UK and France. Charades handled world sales with Film4 taking UK free TV rights, and Scanbox having pre-bought Nordic rights.[3]

The film had its premiere at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas on March 12, 2023.[4] The film will be available on Scanbox in Scandinavia, Weltkino in Germany and Netflix in the UK.[5]

Alissa Simon in Variety wrote that “Sigurðsson shows that he has the chops to work internationally should he choose to”, and praised cinematographer Niels Thastum use of “tight framing to up the claustrophobia quotient of the film’s many enclosed spaces” that “should look fine on screens both big and small” and praised composer Daníel Bjarnson for his “peppy score” which “captures the characters’ tension and fears”.[6]

• Northern Comfort at IMDb