Odessa Young set to star in Thordur Palsson's new psychological horror The Damned
Posted: 14th July 2021
Odessa Young (next appearing in Cannes Film Festival Official Selection Mothering Sunday) is set to star in award-winning director Thordur Palsson’s (Netflix’s “The Valhalla Murders”) highly anticipated psychological horror The Damned, from a script developed with the support of Screen Ireland by Irish writer Jamie Hannigan, based on a story by Thordur Palsson. Shooting commences on location in Iceland in January 2022.
After the death of her husband, Eva (Odessa Young) finds herself in a position of leadership in a small fishing village. In the midst of a particularly harsh winter, and with worries about starvation running high, the community are confronted by a cruel dilemma when a merchant ship sinks off their shores – rescuing those on board would be the moral thing to do but bringing the survivors to their community means more mouths to feed.
Facing the consequences of their choice and tormented by a series of strange events, the villagers wrestle with a mounting sense of guilt and dread. Eva herself is plagued by visions of a mysterious and threatening presence and begins to believe they are all being punished for what they did...
Odessa Young will soon be seen as the lead of Mothering Sunday, Alice Birch’s feature adaptation of Graham Swift’s acclaimed novel which is premiering at this years’ Cannes Film Festival. Directed by Eva Husson, the film also stars Olivia Colman, Colin Firth and Josh O’Connor. Previously, Odessa received rave reviews for her performance starring opposite Elisabeth Moss and Michael Stuhlbarg in Josephine Decker’s Shirley for Killer Films. Odessa was recently seen in the CBS All Access limited event series The Stand, adapted from Stephen King’s novel. Previous credits include Trip Cullman’s Atlantic Theater Company’s production of The Mother opposite Isabelle Huppert, the Sundance hit Assassination Nation directed by Sam Levinson and Sam Taylor Johnson’s A Million Little Pieces opposite Aaron Taylor-Johnson.
Thordur Palsson is the creator and lead director of “The Valhalla Murders”, the first ever co-production between Iceland’s public broadcaster RÚV and Netflix, which is now available on Netflix in over 190 countries. Thordur graduated from the prestigious National Film and Television School with an MA in Directing Fiction in 2015, where his graduation film Brothers won a Special Jury Mention at PalmSprings Shortfest. He also won the 2016 Nordic Talents competition organised by the Nordisk Film & TV Fund.