Celebrating Our 20th Anniversary!
by Alex Billington
July 13, 2026
Source: YouTube
“I think we live in two very separate realities.” 🇳🇴 🏝️ Palace Films has revealed the first official trailer for a Norwegian indie dark comedy titled Butterfly, an intriguing story about estranged sisters who must come together on the Canary Islands to deal with their very peculiar mother’s legacy. This first premiered at the 2026 Rotterdam Film Festival earlier this year and has a Norwegian release set for September. The trailer is mostly in English as this is how the two sisters communicate – since they grew up in elsewhere. The brilliant Renate Reinsve leads Itonje Søimer Guttormsen’s Butterfly, an intriguing and mystical drama about two estranged sisters who reunite in Gran Canaria after the sudden, mysterious death of their mother. This co-stars Helene Bjørneby as his sister and Numan Acar. The sisters meet again in Gran Canaria after their parents’ deaths, only to inherit an unfinished resort & esoteric retreat. Through the strange and the sincere, Guttormsen explores the stories we construct about ourselves and the ones we avoid. It seems super kooky and extra strange, a very Norwegian indie creation about how weird life can be for some people. Take a look.
Here’s the first official trailer for Itonje Søimer Guttormsen’s film Butterfly, from Palace Film’s YouTube:
“Butterfly turns its attention to one of contemporary culture’s persistent habits: talking nonsense about ourselves, inventing images and narratives of our lives and even our pasts that may be fanciful at best and often hollow. As the sisters move through this landscape, Renate Reinsve and Helene Bjørneby shape performances that feel muscular and frail at the same time, perfectly attuned to the film‘s shifting emotional terrain. True to form, Guttormsen finds humour within darker currents, teasing out the vanity, absurdity and everyday strangeness that shape the stories we tell about who we are.” –Via IFFR
“A journey into an unusual mindscape.” Half-sisters Diana (Helene Bjørneby) and Lily (Renate Reinsve) grew up as the only resident children at an all-inclusive resort on Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands, where their uninhibited mother, Vera, worked as a tour guide. 25 years later, they are estranged, having both actively sought distance from the island and from each other. Forced back to the island together, they must confront the aftermath of Vera’s death at an esoteric mountain retreat, where she had tried to build a spiritual world far removed from the island’s package-tour veneer. Butterfly is written & directed by the Norwegian filmmaker Itonje Søimer Guttormsen, making her second feature film after Gritt previously, and a few other shorts. Produced by Maria Ekerhovd. Made by Mer Film, Quiddity Films, Zentropa Sweden, Nord Film. This initially premiered at the 2026 Rotterdam Film Festival earlier this year. It opens first in theaters in Norway starting in September. No US release date is set yet – stay tuned. Intrigued? Any good?
