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Disney family title Lilo & Stitch and Paramount action film Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning square off at the UK-Ireland box office this weekend, in what exhibitors will hope is one of the highest-grossing weekends of the year.

Both titles are opening wide, and have built interest with extensive marketing campaigns and two days of previews, from Wednesday 21.

Box office takings are not expected to crack the weekend of July 21-23, 2023, when the Barbenheimer phenomenon brought in £29.4m from Barbie and Oppenheimer alone – the only occasion when two films have taken more than £10m on the same weekend in the territory.

Warner Bros. claimed the No. 1 position at the U.K. and Ireland box office this weekend with “Final Destination: Bloodlines,” which opened to a powerful £4 million ($5.3 million), according to Comscore.

In its third week, Disney’s Marvel movie “Thunderbolts*” dropped to second but still posted a strong $1.6 million, bringing its running total $18.5 million. Warner Bros.’ “Sinners” followed in third, earning £718,770 $961,049 across its fifth weekend. The film has now reached $19.2 million.

Still a fixture in the top five after seven weeks, “A Minecraft Movie” added $630,986 to bring its cumulative total to $74.1 million. Altitude’s environmental documentary “Ocean With David Attenborough” held fifth place with $285,429 and is now at $1.4 million after two weeks.

New entry “Hurry Up Tomorrow,” released by Lionsgate U.K., debuted in sixth place with $254,125. Warner Bros.’ “The Accountant 2” continued in seventh, adding $149,259 in its fourth weekend for a total of $3.4 million.

Universal’s thriller “Hallow Road” opened...

Elín Hall gives a quietly intense performance as a young woman privately grieving her secret boyfriend’s untimely death

What happens when the unthinkable happens? This Icelandic drama begins when an art student in his early 20s is killed in the country’s worst-ever road traffic accident, one of at least a dozen fatalities. The rest the film follows his dazed girlfriend around Reykjavik for the next 12 or so hours: first the hospital, then to a bar downing shots with friends, and later to a hastily arranged memorial for the dead. Director Rúnar Rúnarsson is more interested in the emotions rolling over her than plot; his delicate wisp of film feels true to life with a quietly intense performance by Elín Hall as the girlfriend, Una.

Actually, Una is not the actual girlfriend. She goes to college with the man who dies, Diddi (Baldur Einarsson), and they’re in a punk band together.

Exclusive: The Valhalla Murders duo Thordur Palsson and Óttar Nordfjord are creating an Icelandic-Finnish climate disaster miniseries titled Avalanche.

Forged for Iceland’s Síminn and rolling cameras next week, Avalanche stars Elín Hall (Let Me Fall) as Freyja, a meteorologist who returns to her hometown to warn the villagers of an imminent catastrophe. Casting striking similarities between fictional tragic events and today’s climate crisis, the series is aiming to highlight the urgency of heeding scientific warnings.

The series is another example of Scandi outfits coming together to create TV, with Iceland’s Glassriver co-producing with Finland’s Whatevergroup, while Ginny & Georgia outfit Dynamic Television is selling worldwide. Palsson is directing and Nordfjord is writing. The pair were behind The Valhalla Murders, the RÚV police procedural that was picked up by Netflix several years back. Margrét Örnólfsdóttir is co-writer of Avalanche.

Palsson said: “Bringing Avalanche to life is both a creative challenge and a responsibility.

One of our great points of pride here at HeyUGuys is to be a media partner with European Film Promotion (Efp) every year the Berlinale, at the wonderful Shooting Stars event, that rewards ten actors from the continent to celebrate their talents, and the best European cinema has to offer. What comes with that territory is the opportunity to sit down with all ten actors, to discuss their careers, their ambitions, and vitally, what it means to them to be a Shooting Star. Below you will find all ten of our interviews, so boil the kettle, sit back – and enjoy.

Frida Gustavsson

Devrim Lingnau

Lidija Kordic

Besir Zeciri

Karlis Arnolds Avots

Elin Hall

Sarunas Zenkevicius

Maarja Johanna Magi

Vicente Wallenstein

Marina Makris

The post European Shooting Stars 2025 – The HeyUGuys Interviews appeared first on HeyUGuys.

French actor Ludivine Sagnier, best known for “Swimming Pool” and “8 Women,” welcomed the European Shooting Stars – 10 up-and-coming European actors – on stage at the Berlinale Palast Monday.

Sagnier was one of the jury members that selected the Shooting Stars, alongside Romanian director Radu Muntean, Swiss producer Amel Soudani, Swedish casting director Pauline Hansson and journalist Vuk Perović from Montenegro.

The Shooting Stars award ceremony, held during the Berlin Film Festival, is the festive highlight and closing event of an intensive four-day program where the actors meet international casting directors and are presented to the international press. German actor Thelma Buabeng introduced the actors to the Berlinale Palast audience.

The Shooting Stars had earlier been greeted on the red carpet by Berlin festival director Tricia Tuttle and Claudia Roth, Germany’s federal government commissioner for culture and the media, in what is likely to be her final official engagement in that...

The ten outstanding actresses and actors from all over Europe have arrived in Germany’s capital city today eagerly waiting to immerse themselves in a tailor-made programme of profile-rising events during this year’s Berlinale.

The ten selected European Shooting Stars for 2025 are: Marina Makris (Cyprus), Besir Zeciri (Denmark), Maarja Johanna Mägi (Estonia), Devrim Lingnau (Germany), Elín Hall (Iceland), Kārlis Arnolds Avots (Latvia), Šarūnas Zenkevičius (Lithuania), Lidija Kordić (Montenegro), Vicente Wallenstein (Portugal) and Frida Gustavsson (Sweden).

Find out more about 2025’s 10 participants

The four-day intensive programme provides a powerful platform for the selected talent giving them the chance to meet international journalists, casting directors, producers and filmmakers, unique opportunities to build a professional network, and equipping the young talents with the necessary means to embark on an international career.

The programme concludes on Monday, 17 February with the European Shooting Stars Awards ceremony at the Berlinale Palast where each actress and...

Now in its 28th edition, the European Shooting Stars platform run by European Film Promotion brings another 10 promising European acting talents to the Berlin Film Festival, with the goal to help them build their careers internationally. From Feb. 14-17, the selected performers will participate in workshops and panels, as well as meetings with international journalists, producers and casting directors. The program culminates in a ceremony at the Berlinale Palast where they will each receive the European Shooting Stars Award.

This year’s Shooting Stars were selected by a jury comprised of Romanian director and screenwriter Radu Muntean, Swedish casting director Pauline Hansson, Swiss producer Amel Soudani, French actress and former Shooting Star Ludivine Sagnier and Montenegrin journalist and curator Vuk Perović. They were selected from candidates nominated by their national film promotion institutes and film centers.

What this year’s group of Shooting Stars has in common besides the potential...

“Vigdís,” the four-part biopic about Iceland’s iconic former president Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, widely known as the world’s first democratically elected female head of state, will bow Feb. 17 at the Berlinale Series Market Selects, courtesy of REinvent International.

The show – which chronicles Finnbogadóttir’s journey from 1948, when she finished secondary school, up until her presidential election in 1980 – lands in Berlin off the back of a strong national run on pubcaster RÚV, where it premiered on Jan. 1.

“It’s one of the most successful TV series broadcasted in Iceland, with around 60% accumulated viewings per episode,” boasts producer Rakel Garðarsdóttir, co-creator with co-writers Ágústa M Ólafsdóttir and Björg Magnúsdóttir (“The Minister”). In the small nation of 390,000 inhabitants, ruled by two women- President Halla Tómasdóttir and Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir, the series about Finnbogadóttir, who championed equality and women’s rights during her presidency (1980 to 1996), has sparked a national craze for everything related to Vigdís.

When the Light Breaks, a quiet and haunting drama about grief from Icelandic filmmaker Rúnar Rúnarsson, won the Dragon Award for Best Nordic Film at the 48th Göteborg Film Festival. The award, which comes with a 400,000 Swedish krona ($36,000) cash prize, was announced during the closing gala Sunday night.

Shot on 16mm, When The Light Breaks stars Elín Hall (Cold, Let Me Fall) as a young art student confronted with a sudden loss who has to navigate love, friendship and grief over an endless long summer day in Iceland. The film premiered in the Cannes’ Un Certain Regard lineup.

The Göteborg jury, which included filmmakers Ella Lemhagen, Philippe Lesage, Athina Rachel Tsangari, cinematographer Jp Passi and actor Frida Gustavsson, praised the film for its “masterfully calibrated mise en scène, its sensitivity and delicate lightness, and its unexpectedly uplifting treatment of grief.”

The Audience Dragon Award for Best Nordic Film went to Eirik Svensson’s Safe House,...

Prominent Icelandic auteur Rúnar Rúnarsson who was Oscar-nominated in 2006 for his short film “The Last Farm,” was handed out the Göteborg Film Festival’s hefty SEK400,000 Dragon Award for Best Nordic Film for his fourth feature “When the Light Breaks” at tonight’s closing gala of the festival’s 48th edition.

Shot in 16mm, the subtle coming-of-age drama starring Elín Hall world premiered last May as the opening film of the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard section.

The story turns on Una, a young art student who encounters love, friendship, sorrow and beauty during on a long summer day in Iceland. The jury for Best Nordic Film including filmmakers Ella Lemhagen, Philippe Lesage, Athina Rachel Tsangari, cinematographer Jp Passi and actor Frida Gustavsson, said the film was awarded the festival’s top prize “for its masterfully calibrated mise en scène, its sensitivity and delicate lightness, its director’s unexpectedly uplifting treatment of grief,...

It’s that time of year again when the European Film Promotion has announced the ten up-and-coming European acting talents selected for the 28th edition of European Shooting Stars.

Presented to the international press, film industry, and public during the 75th Berlinale (13–23 February 2025). As part of this initiative, the actors will participate in a tailor-made, four-day programme – substantially supported by Creative Europe’s Media Programme of the European Union – that will peak with the European Shooting Stars Awards Ceremony on 17 February 2025 at the Berlinale Palast.

Selected by an international jury, comprised of Romanian director and screenwriter Radu Muntean, Swedish casting director Pauline Hansson, Swiss producer Amel Soudani, French actress and former Shooting Star Ludivine Sagnier and Montenegrin journalist and curator Vuk Perović. The five experts recognised the talents‘ remarkable potential for an international career, citing several factors, including their outstanding work in feature films and drama series.

With Cyprus and...

Sky Italia Commits To ‘The X Factor’ After First Ever Outdoor Final

Sky Italia has committed to The X Factor for two more seasons following soaring ratings for the first ever finale to take place outdoors. Last week’s final reached its highest rating for four years and was staged outside in Naples, with a special live performance from Robbie Williams singing “Forbidden Road.” Mimì Caruso was crowned winner. Distributor Fremantle said the show was watched by an average of 1.8 million viewers, up 51% compared to the prior season. The deal will take Simon Cowell’s international hit to 2026 in Italy. “We couldn’t be prouder of the 2024 edition which we redefined from its core, enhancing its entertainment essence and quality,” said Antonella d’Errico, Executive Vice President Content Sky Italia. The X Factor has more than 20 international versions although it hasn’t aired in its origin country the UK since 2018.

European...

The jury for European Shooting Stars, the program that promotes rising actors from Europe, has revealed its 2025 lineup. Shooting Stars from previous editions have included Riz Ahmed, Leonie Benesch, George MacKay, Carey Mulligan, Alba Rohrwacher, Bill Skarsgård, Alicia Vikander and Maisie Williams.

The actors will be presented to the international press, film industry and public during the 75th Berlinale, which runs Feb. 13 – 23. They will take part in a tailor-made, four-day program that will culminate with an awards ceremony on Feb. 17 at the Berlinale Palast. The program is organized by European Film Promotion and is supported by Creative Europe’s Media Programme of the European Union.

The 10 actors selected for its 28th edition are Marina Makris (Cyprus), Besir Zeciri (Denmark), Maarja Johanna Mägi (Estonia), Devrim Lingnau (Germany), Elín Hall (Iceland), Kārlis Arnolds Avots (Latvia), Šarūnas Zenkevičius (Lithuania), Lidija Kordić (Montenegro), Vicente Wallenstein (Portugal) and Frida Gustavsson (Sweden).

The Shooting Stars were...

The Girl With The Needle star Besir Zeciri and Devrim Lingnau, lead in Netflix series The Empress are among the 10 actors selected for the 2025 edition of European Film Promotion’s European Shooting Stars.

The 10 Stars will participate in a four-day programme at next year’s Berlinale, culminating with the European Shooting Stars awards ceremony on February 17 at the Berlinale Palast.

Scroll down for the full list

Each Shooting Stars submission must highlight one performance from the actor’s career, which may be from an as-yet-unreleased work.

Danish entry Zeciri hails from Copenhagen, and played a leading role in Magnus von Horn...

Watching When the Light Breaks on a recent day in Thessaloniki, I spared a thought for anyone in the audience who might be wary of Gen-z’s famed sensitivity. For a film built around a painful secret and an awful tragedy, it’s delivered with refreshingly buoyant energy, yet the thing you hear most often is the sound of a stifled sob. It follows the death of a boy, Diddi (Baldur Einarsson), and how his group of friends cope with the immediate fallout. But here’s the twist: up until his death, he has been having an affair with a girl named Una behind the back of his girlfriend Klara (Katla Njálsdóttir). So when Klara eventually arrives on the scene, understandably devastated and taking the spotlight, it’s Una who must grit her teeth and hold back those tears.

When the Light Breaks is the latest from Rúnar Rúnarsson. This...

Maura Delpero’s Venice Silver Lion winner Vermiglio has earned the Gold Hugo award in Chicago International Film Festival’s international feature competition, while Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light has won the Silver Hugo.

Vermiglio follows three sisters in an Alpine village in the latter stages of the Second World War as a deserter’s arrival has a profound impact on the community.

All We Imagine As Light was the first Indian film in Cannes Competition in three decades and follows two nurses who head off on a road trip.

Silver Hugos in the international feature competition...

The 2024 Chicago Film Festival shined a light on films that stretch the limits of storytelling. From Italy to Cape Verde, this year’s award winners drew viewers in with stories about family, identity, and resilience, along with fresh directing approaches and standout performances. Below are some highlights from the festival’s top prize categories.

Gold Hugo for Best Film: Vermiglio

Directed by Maura Delpero, Vermiglio tells the story of a young woman finding her way within a complex family in Italy’s scenic Alps. The film won the festival’s top honor for its attention to human details and beautiful visuals, capturing relationships that feel timeless.

Silver Hugo for Jury Prize: All We Imagine As Light

Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light explores choice and control across generations in a journey that invites audiences to confront life’s crossroads. It balances comfort with disruption and presents these choices with a relatable vulnerability.

Chicago – The 60th Chicago International Film Festival (Ciff) announced its competitive award winners on October 25th, 2024, and the recipient of The Gold Hugo in the International Feature Film Competition – the festival’s top honor – is Italy’s ‘Vermiglio” (directed by Maura Delparo), regarding a woman and family complexities in the Italian Alps.

Picking up the Festival’s Silver Hugo in the International Feature Film competition is a multi-internationally produced “All We Imagine as Light” (directed by Payal Kapadia). In the New Directors Competition, Mo Harawe’s “The Village Next to Paradise” is awarded the Gold Hugo, with Maryam Moghaddam & Behtash Sanaeeha “My Favourite Cake” receiving the Silver Hugo. The complete list of honorees is below.

“The winning films at the 60th edition of the Chicago International Film Festival reflect a broad diversity of subject, style, and geography,” said Mimi Plauché, the Robert and Penelope Steiner Family Foundation Artistic Director of the Chicago International Film Festival.

The Chicago International Film Festival is wrapping up its 60th edition by handing out its prizes. In fact, though the New York Film Festival has been around longer (it just wrapped its 62nd festival), Chicago is the longest running fest in North America to give out awards. And as you’d expect from this festival that’s especially focused on international film, its winners have also been standouts at Cannes and Venice.

The Best Film winner, or Gold Hugo, at the Chicago International Film Festival is Maura Delpero’s “Vermiglio,” a World War II drama centered in the Alps that drew praise out of Venice, though received a mixed reception from IndieWire. Italy has named the film its entry for next year’s Best International Feature competition at the Academy Awards. The previous three winners of the Gold Hugo at Chicago are Gabor Reisz’s “Explanation for Everything,” Hlynur Palmason’s “Godland,...

Rúnar Rúnarsson’s latest film, “When the Light Breaks,” has found distribution in major markets around the world ahead of its North American premiere. The drama tells a universal story about loss and transformation through its main character Una, played by Elín Hall. Shot on film, the movie draws from Rúnarsson’s own experiences with grief.

The film first screened at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, where it received critical acclaim. Since then, distribution deals have brought the movie to audiences in key territories like Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, Taiwan, Australia, and Brazil. Paris-based sales company The Party Film Sales secured these agreements.

This international success underscores Rúnarsson’s growing reputation as a director. His past works such as 2011’s “Volcano” and award-winning “Sparrows” and “Echo” have earned him praise on the festival circuit. “When the Light Breaks” marks his fourth full-length feature.

The movie will focus...

In the run up to its North American premiere at Toronto Film Festival, Rúnar Rúnarsson’s Icelandic film “When the Light Breaks” has been picked by international distributors. The critically acclaimed movie world premiered at Cannes and is being handled by Paris-based The Party Film Sales.

Shot in 16mm, the movie stars Elín Hall (“Let Me Fall”) as Una, whom Rúnarsson previously described in an interview with Variety as an “outsider in the events that unfold around her, even though she is in fact at their center.” It marks Rúnarsson’s fourth feature. He broke through internationally in 2008 with his Oscar-nominated short “Two Birds.” He went on to helm the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight 2011 entry “Volcano,” San Sebastian 2015 winner “Sparrows “ and 2019 Valladolid and Lübeck fest winner “Echo.”

Following its premiere at Cannes and screenings at Karlovy Vary and Munich FilmFest, The Party Film Sales closed theatrical deals for “When the Light Breaks...

The 58th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (June 28 to July 6) boasted not one but two competitions, the Crystal Globe and Proxima, presided over by the festival president Jiří Bartoška, artistic director Karel Och, and executive director Kryštof Mucha. The festival is the main summer event in the country, which attracts many sponsors and patrons who want to attend, and faces none of the financial hardships of such festivals as Berlin, Toronto, and Sundance. 130 films are shown, with 140,000 tickets sold. There is no room for growth, given the limited venues, from the many screening rooms at the festival hub, the Hotel Thermal, where juror Christine Vachon mixed Negronis for her fellow jurors between screenings, to the colorful arthouse Kino Drahomira, named after a revered Czech woman director.

The Eastern European festival falls between Cannes and Venice, and programs many films in its Crystal Globe Competition that did not make the cut at Cannes,...

The dark loss of grief expands to fill the long magic-hour light of an Icelandic summer day in this delicately worked study of a youth cut short by Rúnar Rúnarsson. The Icelandic director has long had a handle on what makes young people tick and their unpredictable energies - exploring them in the likes of 2 Birds and Sparrows - and they are again to the fore here in a film that is also stylish in terms of its repeated imagery and elegant framing.

The hopefulness of new beginnings is emphasised by a conversation at sunset between fellow students Una (Elín Hall) and Diddi (Baldur Einarsson). They’re in the flush of a first love that they’ve been keeping to themselves. But the morning will see Diddi make the trip back to his hometown to tell his girlfriend Klara (Katla Njálsdóttir) that it's over.

When morning comes, it brings a tunnel,...

A pair of young adults sit on a rocky coast staring at the sun as it hovers on the horizon, casting an ochre glow over the landscape. They trade dreams, jokes and promises while smoking a joint. She teases him about being horny. He vows to break up with his girlfriend, so they no longer have to hide their relationship. Later, in bed, nestling into the grooves of each other’s bodies, they will excitedly murmur their visions of tomorrow.

None of their tomorrows comes true because the boy, Diddi (Baldur Einarsson), dies. On his way out of town, an explosion engulfs a tunnel in Reykjavik in flames, indiscriminately incinerating vehicles and bodies like his own. When the girl, Una (Elin Hall), hears the news, she is enveloped by a gutting despair.

Without ever working above a whisper, Runar Runarsson’s When the Light Breaks (Ljósbrot) finds distinctive and unexpectedly...

In our first encounter with Una (Elín Hall) and Diddi (Baldur Einarsson) in the long dusk of a Reykjavik spring night, they are thinking only of the future. The immediate future: will they be able to sleep overnight together without Diddi’s flatmate noticing? The near future, meaning the next couple of days, when Diddi officially breaks off his longstanding relationship with his high-school sweetheart Klara and starts a new life with Una. And the long term. A trip to Japan. A different life with a wider scope than Iceland can provide. “Should we make babies?” Diddi murmurs into Una’s ear as they lie, wrapped around each other like kittens, in his single-pillowed bed.

But when Diddi is killed in a freak fire in a road tunnel the next morning – a national disaster that claims upwards of a dozen lives – Una finds herself alone with her searing grief. Diddi...

The longest days in your life are those where a loved one dies. Exhausting waves of feeling lap each other over the hours, stretching and blurring them as disbelief gives way to panic, to fatigue, to deep and paralyzing sadness, all while practical tasks mount and accelerate. As you struggle through forms, travel plans and an immediate onslaught of phone calls, the memory of yesterday taunts you with its nearness and distance. How could life have been so different then? Will it ever be so ordinary again? In “When the Light Breaks,” Rúnar Rúnarsson poignantly dramatizes the vastness, smallness and strangeness of one such day, following rawly bereaved art student Una (Elín Hall) through the immediate, suffocating aftermath of her lover Diddi’s sudden passing — with spiraling emotions further confused by unresolved secrets between her and the dead.

For Una cannot openly speak of her love for Diddi (Baldur Einarsson...

In his fourth feature “When the Light Breaks,” Icelandic director Rúnar Rúnarsson starts with a heartbreaking tragedy. Una (Elín Hall) finds out that the boy she loves was in an accident. What follows is a day full of grief — and sunlight. The film opens Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section.

As proven by “Sparrows,” you are not afraid to tells stories with younger protagonists. Is it easy for you to go back to that mindset?

Everything I write is based on my first- or second-hand experiences, which I then mix with fiction. I also had an amazing cast, which is probably one of the first things you have to have. There is a lot of talent in Iceland, but we wanted the crème de la crème. It was crucial to find the right people to portray these characters and turn them into human beings.

It’s different when you work with young adults,...

Paris-based The Party Film Sales and Heather Millard of Iceland’s Compass Films have reunited with “When the Light Breaks” director Rúnar Rúnarsson on his next poetic filmic venture “O.”

The Icelandic film “When the Light Breaks” is due to open Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section May 15.

Headlining Iceland’s major international star Ingvar E. Sigurðsson (“A White, White Day,” “Fantastic Beasts, the Crimes of Grindelwald”), the 20-minute film “O” is a “humanistic and poetic story of a fragile man, trying to achieve a simple task where his main obstacle is within himself,” according to the official logline.

“We’re very excited to also accompany Rúnar on his new short film,” said The Party Film Sales’ Samuel Blanc. “O” and “When the Light Breaks” have a lot in common and resonate with each other. We’re confident distributors will be interested in programming both films in tandem: in the frame of special screenings,...

Paris-based The Party Film Sales has boarded renowned Icelandic auteur Rúnar Rúnarsson’s fourth pic, “When the Light Breaks,” which is selected for Göteborg’s Nordic Film Market’s works in progress session.

Rúnarsson serves as producer together with Heather Millard of Iceland’s Compass Films, in co-production with local banner Halibut, Holland’s Revolver, France’s Eaux Vives/Jour2Fête and Croatia’s MP Film.

Lauded for his coming-of age tales set against Iceland’s majestic scenery, Rúnarsson saw his international breakthrough in 2008 with his Oscar-nominated short “Two Birds.” Since then, he has delivered equally poetic fare in the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight 2011 entry “Volcano,” San Sebastian 2015 winner “Sparrows “ and 2019 Valladolid and Lübeck fest winner “Echo.”

As in his earlier works, Rúnarsson was inspired by a personal event for “When the Light Breaks”. “Ever since experiencing the loss of a friend as a young man, I wanted to deal with the...

“Let Me Fall” is a harrowing look at addiction that stands out amid an autumn filled with films about junkies and their families. Again touching a domestic nerve as he did with “Life in a Fishbowl,” Icelandic auteur Baldvin Z’s drama tells the story of two teenage girls and their descent into the hellish depths of substance abuse. Like Z’s two previous features, it is strongly acted and sensitively directed. It is also remarkable for its unflinching gaze at the abuses the protagonists suffer to satisfy their habits, and for its compelling cinematic style. “Fall” opened in Reykjavik on Sept. 7, far out-grossing “The Nun” in its first week, and is still going strong.

Like Amazon’s awards-buzz title “Beautiful Boy,” “Let Me Fall” is also based on true stories and considerable research in the addict community. And like “Beautiful Boy,” it unfolds in a nonlinear fashion, cutting between...

Films about addiction can be tough to endure depending on how authentically harrowing the experience is drawn. They can only end in one of two ways: death or sobriety. The former can be literal or figurative depending on how deep the drug of choice has its claws fastened and the latter can often be shown as a victory rather than a small step in a series of steps that will go on forever. A character’s journey is therefore always repetitive since reaching bottom before the climax only tips his/her hand too soon. But we should get to know these people and learn to care about their plight instead. We need to conjure sympathy for them or else the impending danger is little more than means to an end.

Suffice it to say, seeing that Baldvin Zophoníasson’s two-plus hour Let Me Fall was just such a film had me worried.