Icelandic filmmaker Baltasar Kormakur's latest film "Jar City" will be hitting screens in the US thanks to IFC Entertainment. The company nabbed the film, which won the top prize at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival back in July, prior to "Jar City"'s popular U.S. debut at last weekend's Telluride Film Festival.

An unconventional detective story, it follows an aging police detective's search for a loner's murderer and covers events spanning thirty years. "Jar City" explores issues of genetics, family, parental loss, and also offers humorous takes on the idiosyncrancies of Icelandic culture, in particular some of the weird Icelandic food choices, such as sheep's head. Produced by Agnes Johansen, Lilja Palmadottir and Kormakur, it is based on the novel by Arnaldur Indridason and has already been a major hit in its home country, winning five of the Icelandic industry's Edda Awards, including best picture and director. In Kormakur's film, beautiful camerawork glides over the gorgeous Icelandic landscape as the story follows the detective's attempt to unravel a complex mystery.

Acclaimed for his 2000 feature "101 Reykjavik," Kormakur shared the Discovery Award here in Toronto for the movie and later directed "The Sea" (2002) and "A Little Trip to Heaven" (2005). Kormakur arrived in Toronto after a buzz-filled trip to Colorado for the Telluride Film Festival. "It was fantastic, I wouldn't miss it," Kormakur told indieWIRE on Friday, when asked him about his trip to the mountatins. The director is currently producing and starring in what he described as a "smuggler comedy," currently shooting in his native Iceland. The film is tentatively titled "Reykjavik-Rotterdam."

[James Israel contributed to this article.]

["Jar City" director Baltasar Kormakur outside the Sutton Place hotel in Toronto today. Photo by Brian Brooks/indieWIRE]