Another fantastic interview with Valdimar Johannsson and Noomi Rapace on the making of “Lamb”, courtesy Screen Daily. Waiting for a sheep to give birth straight into the hands of lead actress Noomi Rapace was just one of the challenges of making Lamb, Icelandic filmmaker Valdimar Johannsson’s debut feature, which created a stir in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard and has become the highest-grossing Icelandic film released in US cinemas (thanks to A24). The story follows an Icelandic couple (Rapace and Hilmir Snaer Gudnason) living on a remote farm who adopt a mysterious newborn, not quite sheep, not quite human, naming it Ada. Known for her booming international career with roles in the Swedish adaptation of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (and its two sequels), The Drop, Child 44 and Amazon series Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, Rapace was born in Sweden but grew up in Iceland. Lamb gave her a chance to return to those roots. Co-scripted by Johannsson with Icelandic screenwriter and novelist Sjon, Lamb is an Iceland-Sweden-Poland co-production, produced by Hronn Kristinsdottir and Sara Nassim at Go To Sheep alongside Piodor Gustafsson and Erik Rydell at Black Spark Prod, and Klaudia Smieja-Rostworowska and Jan Naszewski at Madants. Naszewski’s New Europe Film Sales handles international sales. The full interview can be read here.
I grew up on a farm, [with] life and death present all the time. The circle of life is right there in front of you… and the Icelandic folklore is kind of baked into everything. My grandmother would say, “We can’t ride across this hill because we don’t want to upset the elves.” It was very much a part of life and not seen as something strange.
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