“I Love Diving Into the Unexpected”: DP Amine Berrada on Sukkwan Island

Sukkwan Island marks Vladimir de Fontenay’s follow-up to Mobile Homes, his 2017 Directors Fortnight entry. The film, which stars Swann Arlaud (Anatomy of a Fall) and newcomer Woody Norman, tracks the conflict between Tom and his 13-year-old son Roy when they move to remote northern Norway.

Amine Berrada (Hounds, Banel & Adama) served as director of photography on the Arctic shoot. Below, he gets into the nitty gritty discussing lighting, explaining how the film’s different timeframes necessitated unique approaches to lighting both to serve the story and to adjust to the drastic seasonal differences in northern Norway.

See all responses to our annual Sundance cinematographer interviews here.

Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job?

Berrada: It’s really a mix of things! Director Vladimir de Fontenay saw my work on two films that were at Cannes in 2023, Hounds and Banel & Adama. He reached out to me about Sukkwan Island, and we hit it off right away. I absolutely loved the script, and during our first meetings, it felt like this had the potential to turn into an amazing collaboration. I think my adventurous spirit played a big part too, both in life and in the kinds of projects I take on. I love diving into the unexpected and pushing myself to explore things I’ve never done or seen before.

Filmmaker: What were your artistic goals on this film, and how did you realize them? How did you want your cinematography to enhance the film’s storytelling and treatment of its characters?

Berrada: Sukkwan Island is about a father and son who reconnect after years apart. Most of the film is set in the wilds of northern Norway, where they move into a cabin the father bought planning to spend a year there to rebuild their relationship. But what starts as a chance to reconnect descends into a test of survival as they face the harsh realities of their environment and confront their unresolved turmoil.

When I first read the script of Sukkwan Island, I was struck by the intensity of the journey undertaken by Roy, the teenage protagonist, alongside his manipulative father, Tom. It felt like Roy was constantly at the mercy of his father’s shifting moods. My instinct was to reflect these emotional swings by creating atmospheres that mirrored those moods, with sharp contrasts and breaks between sequences. Just as the father’s mental state alternates between highs and lows, the imagery would shift between dark and light, chaos and harmony. One of my favorite scenes showcasing this approach is when the father, Tom, returns from hunting a bear. It’s the first moment where both Roy—and we as the audience—see a different, unsettling side of him. His behavior becomes strange and mean, something we haven’t witnessed before. As he moves through the cabin, room by room, reprimanding his son, the light on his face changes depending on where he is—whether in the living room (lateral light), the kitchen (silhouette), or the bedroom (red lit from the curtain). It’s as though his identity is constantly shifting, making it impossible to truly grasp who he is as a person.

Filmmaker: Were there any specific influences on your cinematography, whether they be other films, or visual art, or photography, or something else?

Berrada: Vladimir de Fontenay and I spent months before prep and filming discussing the style of the movie in detail. We shared a ton of references that helped us shape the vision we had in mind. Among those, we kept coming back to Andrea Arnold’s films, especially Fish Tank and American Honey, along with Robbie Ryan’s incredible work. I’ve always found his approach so inspiring—the organic, immersive feel of those films was exactly what we wanted to capture.

Another major influence for us was Wim Wenders’s Paris, Texas, shot by Robby Müller. The way it uses vivid colors at night really inspired our direction. We also often drew from The Return by Andrei Zvyagintsev and found creative sparks in the work of photographers like Todd Hido, Sally Mann, Dolores Marat, Ryan McGinley, and Benoît Paille.

Filmmaker: What were the biggest challenges posed by production to those goals?

Berrada: We had big ambitions for the project, but the toughest challenges were the limited time we had and the freezing cold conditions in northern Norway during winter.

Filmmaker: What camera did you shoot on? Why did you choose the camera that you did? What lenses did you use?

Berrada: We went with the Arri Alexa Mini paired with Atlas Orion anamorphic lenses. This setup gave us just the right texture, the right balance between sharpness and softness, and flares and bokeh that fit the look we were going for. Plus, this combo was compact enough to work in the tiny cabin we were shooting in.

Filmmaker: Describe your approach to lighting.

Berrada: There are four distinct timelines in Sukkwan Island, and we approached the lighting for each one differently to reflect their unique tone and emotion.

Present Time with Adult Roy: In this timeline, Roy is a fragile, melancholic character revisiting his past on a harsh island in northern Norway during winter. The setting is physically and emotionally hostile. To reflect this, we created relatively dark and very cold visuals particularly by reducing red tones. The main color palette consisted of white, blue, green and black, emphasizing the bleakness of the moment.

Past Time Before the Trip: This timeline reflects the first memory, so we contrasted it with the present time by using brighter, warmer, and more colorful images. To achieve this, we used an old 18kW HMI with a large surface, placing it far from the action in most scenes, both indoors and outdoors (like the parking lot). This created bright, subtle, direct light that was also relatively soft, underscoring a more pleasant and hopeful mood.

Past Time During the Trip (Summer): At this point in the story, the trip is going well, and there’s a sense of smoothness and harmony between the father and son. We enhanced this by using soft lighting and avoiding dark areas inside the cabin. For instance, we covered the entire ceiling of the cabin with white muslin, diffusing the light to create an open and inviting feel. Since this was during the Arctic summer, where there’s no true night, we built “nights” to resemble extended dusks or blue hour, which was a fun challenge given the lack of natural darkness for weeks.

Past Time During the Trip (Winter): Winter marked a sharp contrast, bringing freezing cold, minimal daylight and a raw, harsh atmosphere. To reflect this shift, we swapped the white muslin on the ceiling for black fabric, creating darker, more contrasted interiors. Outside, we used direct sunlight (or 9kW HMIs) bouncing off the snow or shining directly into the cabin. These elements brought a sense of frigid hostility. During this period, the nights were incredibly dark and long. We approached them with vivid colors, drawing inspiration from the way certain hues or feelings can stay etched in memory. Our color palette leaned on green and cyan tones, inspired by the aurora borealis, combined with complementary orange and red. For me, this color palette symbolized the tension and conflict between the father and son, bringing an emotional depth to the imagery. To achieve this, we used Asteras and Vortex fixtures, along with a striking red bulb I discovered with the help of the production design team, which added a unique touch to the palette.

Filmmaker: What was the most difficult scene to realize and why? And how did you do it?

Berrada: The winter part was definitely a challenge since Northern Norway gets super cold. We had to deal with freezing temperatures, snowstorms and only a few hours of daylight. But we adapted quickly, and most of the shoot went well. On the flip side, the easiest part was definitely the scenes we shot on the plane—those were a lot of fun!

Filmmaker: Finally, describe the finishing of the film. How much of your look was “baked in” versus realized in the DI?

Berrada: Together with colorist Elie Akoka, we created LUTs based on the images I shot under the same conditions and at the same locations as the shoot. The final result in the DI is a continuation of the work we did with Elie. I definitely believe we wouldn’t have achieved this result without the pre-LUTs done in those conditions.

TECH BOX

Film Title: Sukkwan Island
Camera: Arri Alexa Mini
Lenses: Atlas Orion Anamorphic + Angénieux Optimo 56-152mm
Lighting: HMIs, LEDs and Tungsten
Processing: Arriraw Opengate 3,4K
Color Grading: Elie Akoka