''Heartstone'' (''Hjartasteinn'') is a 2016 Icelandic

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

directed by Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson. It tells the story of a strong friendship between two preteen boys in a small Icelandic fishing village and the emotional and sexual turbulence of adolescence. It was screened in the Discovery section at the

2016 Toronto International Film Festival The 41st annual Toronto International Film Festival was held from 8 to 18 September 2016. The first announcement of films to be screened at the festival took place on 26 July. Almost 400 films were shown. Awards The festival's final awards were ...

. On 9 September 2016, the film won the

Queer Lion The Queer Lion is the trophy awarded yearly since 2007 to the “Best Movie with LGBT Themes & Queer Culture” among those presented during the Venice International Film Festival.David Opie"Venice Film Festival: A Guide To Every Queer Lion Award ...

at the

73rd Venice Film Festival The 73rd annual Venice International Film Festival was held from 31 August to 10 September 2016. English director Sam Mendes was the President of the Jury for the main competition. The opening night film was Damien Chazelle's musical ''La La Lan ...

. It was the first Icelandic film to be shown in a competitive section of the Venice Film Festival. It was also nominated for the 2017

Nordic Council Film Prize The Nordic Council Film Prize is an annual film prize administered by the Nordic Council. The Nordisk Film & TV Fond is the funding body that administers the prize. History The first award was handed out in 2002 to celebrate the Nordic Council's 5 ...

and won the 2017 Icelandic

Edda Awards The Edda Award is an accolade bestowed annually by the Icelandic Film and Television Academy, and is the most prominent film and television award in Iceland, awarded annually in February. The ''Edda'' has awarded for outstanding work in various ca ...

Cast

* Baldur Einarsson as Þór/ Thor * Blær Hinriksson as Kristján/ Christian * Diljá Valsdóttir as Beta/ Beth * Katla Njálsdóttir as Hanna/ Hannah * Jónína Þórdís Karlsdóttir as Rakel * Rán Ragnarsdóttir as Hafdís *

Søren Malling Søren Dyrberg Malling (; born 3 February 1964) is a Danish actor. Career Raised in Kjellerup, Malling trained at Skuespillerskolen at Odense Teater in 1992. He is best known for his role as Inspector Jan Meyer in the Danish TV crime thriller ...

as Sven *

Nína Dögg Filippusdóttir Nína Dögg Filippusdóttir (born 25 February 1974) is an Icelandic actress and producer. She is known for '' Children'' (2006), '' Trapped'' (2015), '' Undercurrent'' (2010), '' The Valhalla Murders'' (2020) and ''Blackport'' (2021). Early li ...

as Hulda * Gunnar Jónsson as Ásgeir *

Sveinn Ólafur Gunnarsson Sveinn Ólafur Gunnarsson is an Icelandic stage and film actor who starred in and co-wrote 2011's ''Either Way'', Ragnar Bragason's '' Metalhead'' and Baltasar Kormákur's '' The Deep''. Career Gunnarsson stars in the film Rams which premiered ...

as Sigurður

Production

The film is Guðmundur's first feature-length film and he began working on the script in 2007. It was shot in the fall of 2015 in

Borgarfjörður eystri Borgarfjörður eystri () is a fjord in east Iceland. It is part of the municipality of Borgarfjarðarhreppur and, as of 2011, the area has a population of around 100 inhabitants. The main settlement is Bakkagerði. The town derives its name ...

Seyðisfjörður Seyðisfjörður () is a town in the Eastern Region of Iceland at the innermost point of the fjord of the same name. The town is located in the municipality of Múlaþing. A road over Fjarðarheiði mountain pass (elevation ) connects Seyðisfjö ...

Vopnafjörður Vopnafjörður () is a village and municipality in Northeast Iceland, standing on a peninsula in the middle of a mountainous bay by the same name. The main industries of Vopnafjörður are fish processing, agriculture and tourism and other servic ...

, and

Dyrhólaey Dyrhólaey (, "door hill island"), formerly known by seamen as Cape Portland, is a small promontory located on the south coast of Iceland, not far from the village Vík. It was formerly an island of volcanic origin, which is also known by the ...

Reception

The film was well received in Iceland and won the 2017 Icelandic

. The script, the dialogue, and the directing of young actors received praise. The

cinematography Cinematography (from ancient Greek κίνημα, ''kìnema'' "movement" and γράφειν, ''gràphein'' "to write") is the art of motion picture (and more recently, electronic video camera) photography. Cinematographers use a lens to focu ...

by Sturla Brandt Gøvlen amplified Icelandic nature, with long shots of coastlines and fjords. On

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 84% based on 25 reviews, with an average rating of 6.97/10. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns rating to reviews, the film has a weighted average score of 70 out of 100, based on 5 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Heartstone 2016 films 2016 LGBT-related films 2016 romantic drama films Icelandic romantic drama films 2010s Icelandic-language films Icelandic LGBT-related films Febiofest award winners LGBT-related romantic drama films