Universal Pictures International & Parco Ready Japanese Release Of Baltasar Kormákur’s ‘Touch’, A Film With Strong Local Resonance

Universal Pictures International and Parco are teaming to release Baltasar Kormakur’s film Touch in Japan next week on January 24, 2025.

The film has particular local resonance, being the story of a decades-spanning love story between an Icelandic man and a Japanese woman who is a survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bomb attack of 1945 and who battles the stigma associated with the survivors, known in Japan as Hibakusha.

The film is Iceland’s submission for the international film Academy Award and is on the 15-film shortlist. Pic features Japanese stars Koki, Masahiro Motoki and Masatoshi Nakamura alongside Icelandic actors Egill Olafsson and Palmi Kormakur.

The drama had its Japanese premiere at the Hiroshima International Film Festival in November last year attended by director Kormákur. It also screened in Oslo during the Nobel prize ceremonies in December where Nihon Hidankyo, the organisation of survivors from the bomb attacks in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were honoured with the Nobel Peace Prize 2024. 

Both the Hiroshima and the Oslo screenings were attended by 87 year-old Keiko Ogura, who explained to the audience the discrimination that Hibakusha had to live with for decades after the war. One Hibakusha at the Hiroshima screening described the opposition to her marriage from her future husband’s family and even his opposition to them having children.

Japanese distributor Parco has worked previously with Universal on titles such as The Northman, Cocaine Bear, Belfast, Mrs Harris Goes To Paris and Asteroid City. Universal last year partnered with Bitter’s End on the Japan release of Oppenheimer, another film about the atomic bomb, which is a particularly controversial subject in the country given what happened in 1945. Despite trepidation from partners over Oppenheimer‘s release in the territory, it went on to score more than $12M at the box office. Universal will be hoping that Touch can also find its local audience.

Director Kormákur, who also produced Touch with Agnes Johansen and Mike Goodridge, told us today: “It was a powerful and humbling experience to screen Touch at the Hiroshima Film Festival in November after having filmed there in 2023. I was equally humbled and honored when asked to screen Touch in Oslo the week when the Japanese organization Nihon Hidankyo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. I especially want to thank Keiko Oguro for not only embracing our modest reminder of the effects of the bombings on innocent people, but most importantly for the generosity with which she has spent her life spreading her knowledge about the bombings and keeping the survivors’ stories alive.”

Below is an image of the Touch press conference at the Hiroshima International Film Festival. In the image, from left to right, are Baltasar Kormákur, Kazumi Matsui (the mayor of Hiroshima), Keiko Ogura of the hibakusha organisation Ihon Hidankyo, Stefan H Johannesson (Icelandic ambassador to Japan) and Mrs Halldora Hermannsdottir, and Yoshifumi Ishida, the director of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.