Mikael Torfason
Series Mania winner, best-selling author of eight books, ten plays, three feature films, two mini-series and a Netflix Original.
Welcome to my site.
Writer-director
Film & TV
BLACKPORT
Grand Prix winner at Series Mania 2021, Serielizados Fest in 2021, and the 2022 Nordic TV Drama Screenplay Award at Gothenburg Film Festival. Written and created by Mikael Torfason, Gisli Orn Gardarson & Bjorn Hlynur Haraldsson.
Vesturport, RÚV, Arte France, Turbine Studios.
MADE IN ICELAND
Original title: Gemsar
Written and directed by Mikael Torfason
NOMINATIONS:
- Best Picture & Best Cinematography at
The Gothenburg Film Festival
- Best Picture at The Berlin Digital Film
Festival
- Best Picture at The Sao Paulo
International Film Festival
THE VALHALLA MURDERS
A Netflix original series written by Mikael Torfason, Margret Ornolfsdottir, Otto Geir Borg and Ottar M. Nordjord.
Police profiler Arnar teams up with detective Kata to solve Iceland's first serial killer case. The murders don't seem to have much in common until the investigative duo connect them to an abandoned boys' home named Valhalla, where horrendous crimse occurred 35 years earlier.
FALSKUR FUGL
Based on Torfason's first novel, Falskur Fugl (Ferox in English), and directed by Thor Omar Jonsson. The film received 5 nomination at the Edda Film Awards in Iceland.
AGNES JOY
Based on Torfason's original script, directed by Silja Hauksdottir. Won best film at the Icelandic Edda Awards and Iceland's and Iceland's entry for the Best international Feature film at the 93d Academy Awards.
REPRESENTATION
Jessica Cooper
Theatre
Nominated for BEST PLAY at the Icelandic Grima Theatre Awards.
PINOT NOIR
THE PERFECT MAN
Monologues by Mikael Torfason
Torfason's latest monologue is Pinot Noir, written for Ganymed in the Kunsthistorische Museum In Vienna.
The Perfect Man was a one man show performed in the City Theatre in Reykjavik.
"Torfason's text is solid and to the point... no clichés here... and sometimes way to convincing..."
DV Newspaper
"Hits straight home!"
Morgunbladid Newspaper
HARMSAGA
HARM / SAGA
written by Mikael Torfason
“Mikael Torfason's two-character drama, based on an actual murder case, makes August Strindberg's gruelling "Dance of Death" seem polite. It's like an indie film update of Strindberg, with the twisted psychological games driven to explosive heights by explicit footage of an affair (hers) and animalistic roars and self-flagellation (his).”
The Washington Post
THE ODYSSEY
DIE EDDA
Mikael Torfason successful collaboration with director Thorleifur Orn Arnarsson has given birth to seven plays. They've received numerous prizes for their work in theatres in Iceland, Germany, Austria and Norway.
NJÁLA
GOD BLESS ICELAND
ENEMY OF THE DUCK
MAZE OF KNOWLEDGE
LET'S TALK ABOUT FAUST
THE ODYSSEY
Books
SAMUEL
(Samúel)
TRANSLATION RIGHTS
Enrichetta Frezzato
About Mikael Torfason
REPRESENTATION
Jessica Cooper
Mikael Torfason has written eight novels, ten plays , two mini-series, a Netflix Original, and three feature films. Torfason has also had an extensive and impressive career as journalist in Iceland, producing documentary series for radio and TV, as well as being Editor-in-Chief of the two of the biggest newspapers in Iceland, and director of 365 News, the largest media company in Iceland.
Torfason’s latest TV series, Blackport, won the Grand Prize at Series Mania in France in 2021. That same year the series won the Grand Prize at Serielizados in Spain, and in 2022 Torfason won the prestigious Nordic TV Drama Screenplay Award at the Gothenburg Film Festival for Blackport.
He wrote and directed Made in Iceland, a feature film that traveled the world, and was nominated for numerous prizes, including best film at the Gothenburg Film Festival in Sweden. In 2013 Ferox, a film based on Torfason’s first novel, premiered in Iceland. In 2020, Agnes Joy, a feature film Mikael Torfason co-produced and wrote the original screenplay for won best film and best screenplay at the Edda Film Awards in Iceland. Agnes Joy also won the Audience Award at the Glasgow Film Festival in 2020, and became Iceland’s entry for the 93rd Academy Awards.
Torfason has written ten plays for the biggest theatres in Europe. In 2014 his play, Tragedy, premiered at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. In 2018 he wrote the play Die Edda for the state theatre in Hannover and the Burgtheater in Vienna. In 2016 Torfason’s play, Enemy of the Duck, won best play at the Nat&Dag Theatre Awards in Oslo, Norway. All of Torfason’s Icelandic plays have been nominated to the Grima Theatre Awards in Iceland, and in 2015 his play, Njala, won 10 Grima’s, including best play.
In 2023 Torfason’s film, Returning to Lulu, will premiere in Iceland but the film is shot in German, Icelandic and English.
Recently Torfason wrote the TV series Valhalla Murders for Netflix. The series was nominated for 13 Edda Film Awards in Iceland, including best screenplay. BBC selected it as one of the “Best TV shows of 2020”.
His novels have been translated into German, Danish, Swedish, Lithuanian, Finnish and English. His fourth novel, Samuel, was nominated for the Icelandic Literature Prize, and his third novel, The World Dumbest Father, was nominated for the Nordic Council’s Literature Prize which is the highest honor a Scandinavian writer can achieve.
Mikael Torfason was born and raised in Reykjavik, Iceland.