The Sweet Shop has signed director Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson for international representation. He will be available for scripts coming into The Sweet Shop’s seven offices in London, Los Angeles, Bangkok, Shanghai, Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland.
The Sweet Shop is the first commercialmaking/branded content production house roost for Gudmundsson. After graduating from Icelandic Art Academy in Fine Art, he moved to Denmark and studied screenwriting. His short films and feature debuts have been selected for more than 200 festivals and have won over 100 international awards.
His hauntingly beautiful short Whale Valley (2013) about the bond of two brothers received a Cannes Film Festival Special Mention and a nomination for the European Film Awards. During Cannes Cinefoundation, a Paris residency program, Gudmundsson developed and wrote his first feature Heartstone (2017) a very personal story about two boys coming of age in a small Icelandic fishing village.
Paul Prince, CEO and founding partner of The Sweet Shop, said, “Gudmundur is a very real talent, who is known to be among Iceland’s next generation of filmmakers. He shows a very strong voice in his work—it affects the heart and its vulnerability leaves a lasting impression. I’m so excited to see what we will create together.”
Gudmundsson added, “The body of work coming out of The Sweet Shop is breathtaking. It’s work with real soul. The international nature of the company is a huge draw. I really believe that commercial filmmaking is built on collaboration, and having the opportunity to work alongside creative agencies based in different countries and cultures is incredibly exciting for me.”
Carrie Coon Relishes Being Part Of An Ensemble–From “The Gilded Age” To “His Three Daughters”
It can be hard to catch Carrie Coon on her own.
She is far more likely to be found in the thick of an ensemble. That could be on TV, in "The Gilded Age," for which she was just Emmy nominated, or in the upcoming season of "The White Lotus," which she recently shot in Thailand. Or it could be in films, most relevantly, Azazel Jacobs' new drama, "His Three Daughters," in which Coon stars alongside Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen as sisters caring for their dying father.
But on a recent, bright late-summer morning, Coon is sitting on a bench in the bucolic northeast Westchester town of Pound Ridge. A few years back, she and her husband, the playwright Tracy Letts, moved near here with their two young children, drawn by the long rows of stone walls and a particularly good BLT from a nearby cafe that Letts, after biting into, declared must be within 15 miles of where they lived.
In a few days, they would both fly to Los Angeles for the Emmys (Letts was nominated for his performance in "Winning Time" ). But Coon, 43, was then largely enmeshed in the day-to-day life of raising a family, along with their nightly movie viewings, which Letts pulls from his extensive DVD collection. The previous night's choice: "Once Around," with Holly Hunter and Richard Dreyfus.
Coon met Letts during her breakthrough performance in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?" on Broadway in 2012. She played the heavy-drinking housewife Honey. It was the first role that Coon read and knew, viscerally, she had to play. Immediately after saying this, Coon sighs.
"It sounds like something some diva would say in a movie from the '50s," Coon says. "I just walked around in my apartment in my slip and I had pearls and a little brandy. I made a grocery list and I just did... Read More