Rams

PAST FILM SCREENING

March 2 – 2PM + 7:30PM

Iceland, 2015 – Rated 14A – 93 minutes – in Icelandic with English subtitles
Directed by Grímur Hákonarson
Cast: Grímar Jónsson, Ditte Milsted, Jakob Jarek

Despite the fact that they live on neighbouring farms, Gummi (Sigurdur Sigurjónsson) and Kiddi (Theodór Júlíusson) have not spoken to one another in forty years, their intermittent and grudging communications carried out via letters carried by Kiddi’s dog. Their rivalry reaches its height in the valley’s annual competition for best ram, which Kiddi has won several times. After once again losing the prize to the boastful, hard-living Kiddi, the stern and solitary Gummi spots a dead sheep in Kiddi’s field, and soon begins to notice symptoms of the lethal and highly contagious disease scrapie in his neighbour’s flock. Veterinary authorities quickly arrive in the valley and decree drastic measures that may mean disaster for the entire region, and that the two men determine to resist, each in his distinctive way.

“Rams is a touching humanist drama set in a remote farming valley where two estranged brothers must come together to save what’s dearest to them: their sheep.”
– Alissa Simon, Variety

“A small story about two old estranged brothers and their animals gently morphs from gentle near-absurdist comedy to something close to tragedy in Rams, a simply but skillfully told tale of the hardships of isolated rural life in Iceland even today.”
– Todd McCarthy, The Hollywood Reporter