World-premiered in the Discovery section of the 2023 Toronto Film Festival, Ninna Pálmadóttir’s accomplished debut feature, titled “Solitude,” recently played at the Göteborg Film Festival (26 January-4 February), one of Northern Europe’s most prominent cinematic gatherings. 

Penned by acclaimed Icelandic filmmaker Rúnar Rúnarsson, the movie follows Gunnar (Þröstur Leó Gunnarsson), an old farmer forced to move to Reykjavík for the first time. There, he forms an unexpected bond with a paper boy (Hermann Samúelsson) living next door.

During our friendly chat with Pálmadóttir, we covered several topics including working with Rúnarsson, casting the two leads and the movie’s core themes, among others.

First, how did you end up working on Rúnar Rúnarsson’s script? And, how was working with him?

It was a really big coincidence because I made two shorts that I had shown at festivals internationally. One was about a little paperboy and how he sees the world, and the other one was about a lonesome countryside man. But I had never spoken to Rúnar about any of these characters. So it was a total coincidence that I was already dabbling in these characters’ world. I admired his work for a long time, since I was a teenager. He saw my short about the paperboy, he had his script ready for a while and I caught the chance to take it on as a director and make it my own. So that’s how it happened. He’s been very supportive, and he encouraged me to ‘put my voice’ on it. So we had many conversations about the story, I told him what I felt the heart of it was, and he kept on encouraging me to do my own thing.

Right. But if we compare the movie as it is now and as it looked like on the last draft of the script, were there many changes along the way?

I wouldn’t say there were any rewrites. I think it was just about fine-tuning some moments. I feel like the heart of the story has always been this connection and friendship between the two characters. And, we worked on finding the right tempo, because it’s made of many little ‘knickknacks’ related to Gunnar, with him exploring the ‘space of solitude,’ observing the city and us seeing glimpses of his life. But I feel like much of this work on pacing actually happened during the editing process as well.

Zooming in on the two leads, how did you cast Þröstur Leó Gunnarsson and Hermann Samúelsson? How did you prepare them to play their characters and get them as close as we see them throughout the movie?

I’ve been a fan of Þröstur’s work for a long time. He’s been so involved in the Icelandic film scene and on stage as well. And he’s had a couple of great years playing leading roles, including Tallinn 2022 winning movie “Driving Mum.” He’s really shining, and rightly so. He’s a wonderful actor and a wonderful person. He has a lot to gift the audience. He has so much comedy in himself and he’s so funny. But then he can go so deep, and he has such an interesting face to observe. For some reason, after a couple of reads, his face popped up in my head. There was no turning back; it was just a strong intuition. He was the only actor I talked to. Things are pretty casual in Iceland, and everybody knows everybody. At the time, I was in touch with another producer who had already worked with him. So Þröstur and I had a coffee and it felt like I had known him for so long. I think he gave this role so much complexity and empathy. For the boy, we went through a regular casting process, but I experienced something similar. Hermann showed up at the audition, and he had this ‘light’ around him. They are already look like powerful characters by their appearance, with Þröstur’s kind of darkness and Hermann being a redheaded boy. Hermann is a natural talent, and it was his first leading role. The process was mostly about spending time together and building trust. With children actors, this is mostly about creating the space to observe them [acting] and get them to a place where they are themselves, at least for the most part. Their onscreen chemistry, in my humble opinion, is great. For example, the moment when they start dancing and banging heads together wasn’t written. It was something they started doing while messing around in between takes.

I think the core themes are friendship and solitude – if not alienation to some extent. But there are also a few sub-themes that emerge quite visibly, like inequality, multiculturalism and urbanization. How did you manage to balance all of this without creating something overambitious or simply too chaotic? 

That’s a very good question because that’s something that has been stuck in my mind for a while. Gunnar is entering society for the first time in his life. So many things are added to his equation, to the way he sees the world. I tried to make this movie almost ‘timeless,’ meaning that I never say exactly when all of this is happening. It could be set 10 or 15 years ago. But these topics – for example, the topic of immigration – are timely and [part of our] recurring conversations. Those stories aren’t mine to tell, but they’re more of something that can shed a light on the kind-hearted nature of the characters – how Gunnar interacts with Hermann, how they see things. It’s a story of belonging, and I think finding a place in the world is a universal theme. Besides, Hermann asks Gunnar a simple question about the hypocrisy of Iceland. Back in the day, many Icelanders immigrated to the US and Canada: “Why can’t we show the same empathy?”

What type of vision and references did you share with your DP? 

We watched some movies that have to do with space, loneliness and solitude, obviously. Then I started this really lovely collaboration with Dušan [Husár]. He’s a very talented DP. I think we ended up following a very intuitive approach. I’ve mostly chosen very static shots for my shorts, going by framing like painting for the most part. Then I watched “Nomadland,” which is basically observing Frances McDormand alone for the whole movie, and I really liked that kind of ‘flowing handheld’ camera work. Nevertheless, it ended up we had to be intuitive dealing with what was happening with the emotions, feeling the atmosphere. Then we just talked about color. In this respect, everybody was speaking the same language – the DP, the production designer, the costume designer, the hairdresser, the make-up artist and so on. In visual terms, we wanted the color palette to look nostalgic but bright. We never wanted to show this man moving from the countryside to a grey city, where everything is gloomy and depressing. The city is supposed to be life-changing for him, so I wanted it to look colorful and rich.