Hot Icelandic actor-writer-director Baltasar Kormakur is going to follow his festival and crowd pleasing feature directing debut, 101 Reykjavik, with two new films from his own hand as well as one as producer.

Kormakur, who is in Cannes acting in Hal Hartley's No Such Thing, has set up his own outfit, Blue Eyes, with his wife. Both of them also hold two thirds of 101 Ltd., which produced his debut.

Kormakur will co-produce Stormy Weather with Patrick Soberman for French-Icelandic director Solveig Anspach, in Cannes presenting Made In USA in director's fortnight. The English-language film will shoot in spring 2002 in Iceland and New York and has been backed by the Icelandic Film Fund and will benefit from the Icelandic law authorising the reimbursement of 12% of cost on film production in the country.

As reported earlier this week in Screen International, Kormakur will make his English-language debut with A Little Trip To Heaven produced by Joni Sigvatsson's LA-based Palomar Pictures from an original script by Kormakur. The edgy thriller is expected to shoot in Halifax Canada later this year, with Iceland's Zik Zak Filmworks co-producing.

So far dodging several acting offers Kormakur is also preparing a film version of Olafur Haukur Simonarsson's play The Sea, co-writing the script with the writer. The Sea will be co-produced by France's Motion Pictures and Norway's Filmhuset and is a family drama in the style of The Celebration which will shoot in the Eastern part of Iceland.

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