'The Deep' Iceland's Oscar Candidate

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The Deep, a real-life survival tale from director Baltasar Kormakur (Contraband) is Iceland's candidate for the 2013 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Members of Iceland's Film and TV Academy picked the drama, about a fisherman who miraculously survived several hours in the freezing ocean after his boat capsized off the south coast of Iceland in 1984. The Deep had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it won critical praise for its gripping underwater scenes, shot by Kormakur on the open sea.

Kormakur who divides his time between Icelandic and Hollywood projects, has just wrapped filming on the action thriller 2 Guns, starring Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg. The feature is set for an August 2013 release.

Iceland has never won an Oscar and has only once been nominated in the Best Foreign Film category, when Fridrik Thor Fridriksson's Children of Nature received a nom in 1992.