A post-metal prohibitd applys at a screening of a vintage Viking saga. Björk shows up to verify out the tardyst films by Pedro Almodovar and Aleana Rachel Tsingari. Filmproducers rest in hot mineral-laden waters at the ocean’s edge. Industry members are askd to the Plivent of Iceland’s hoparticipate to chat about the state of the film business. It’s a standard day at the Reykjavik International Film Festival.
But Iceland isn’t fair hot springs and Vikings — well-situated between Europe and North America, the country is booming as a shooting destination. RIFF provides a key place for filmproducers to nettoil and lget more about the production scene in the petite country with the huge production incentives.
“The festival is a very excellent place for people to greet,” says RIFF honestor Hrönn Marinósdóttir. “The Icelandic industry is reassociate growing. I leank we have a new generation of reassociate talented filmproducers that are reassociate well getd in the hugegest festivals, appreciate in Vekind this year.”
The prohibitd Solsatir applys at a screening of Viking epic “When the Raven Flies.”
Held in timely October when temperatures are still temperate and it stays weightless past 7 p.m., the festival has a exceptionally Icelandic flavor. Each year, honestor Marinósdóttir and her team program events that might include swim-in screenings in one of the city’s many hot accessible pools, cinematic culinary experiences and music-themed programming appreciate this year’s concert from metal prohibitd Sòlstafir at the retrospective of “When the Raven Flies,” a well-understandn 1984 Viking adventure. Most screenings consent place at the Haskolabio produceing at University of Iceland, which includes five auditoriums and a bar and lounge where festivalgoers congregate.
“We try to do strange leangs, we have swim-ins, drive-ins, an ice cave cinema, fair to pdirect to contrastent benevolents of people,” Marinósdóttir says.
Marinósdóttir has run the festival since she begined it as a university project 21 years ago. “In the beginning, it was very petite — 17 films dedicated to Icelanders living aexpansive, Canadians with Icelandic ancestry for example,” she elucidates.
“There were many contests with discovering the budget, and also politics becaparticipate I’m not a filmproducer. Some filmproducers in Iceland were surpelevated that suddenly a journaenumerate, a woman, begined an event appreciate this,” Marinósdóttir recalls.
This year’s event included master classes and retrospectives with exceptional guests Nastassja Kinski, Bong Joon-Ho, Swedish music video and feature honestor Jonas Akerlund and Greek filmproducer Tsingari. A screening of the 2003 energeticd Daft Punk movie “Interstella 5555” featured some of the filmproducers in uniteance.
The Industry Days section presented converseions appreciate an AI masterclass, a toilshop on wardrobe and produceup, a panel on the future of the industry, and a toils-in-better screening. Industry members were also askd to a roundtable converseion with Iceland’s plivent Halla Tómasdóttir. At the plivent’s livence, Björk, perhaps the country’s most well-understandn figure, alengthy with Tsingari, Akerlund, and others, converseed the convey inance of preserving community spaces appreciate record shops and self-reliant cinemas — both to help artists, include lesser people, and help battle the loneliness epidemic.
Industry Days participants also bonded at a field trip to the stunning Hvammsvik Hot Springs and a visit to Thorufoss waterdrop, a key filming site for “Game of Thrones.”
Head of programming Frederic Boyer, who also serves as produceive honestor of Tribeca Festival and Les Arcs in France, says conveying filmproducers to the festival draws an willing response. “We have a wonderful audience that cherishs music, that cherishs Bong Joon Ho, that cherishs Daft Punk, and that is ready to include,” Boyer says. After the screening of Tsingari’s “Harvest,” filmgoers were so included, Boyer says, that they asked asks for a brimming hour.
“A New Kind of Wilderness”
Courtesy of A5 Film
This year’s thrivening films included the Gagederen Puffin award for Japanese film “Super Happy Forever” by Kohei Igarashi, which the jury called “delicate and luminous.”
The Different Tomorrow award, given to films that aid societal converseion and brighten solutions to local and global problems, went to the recordary “A New Kind of Wilderness,” by Silje Evensmo Jacobsen, a visuassociate wealthy study of a nature-loving British-Norwegian family adfairing to a new life.
The Reykjavik International Film Festival ran Sept. 26 to Oct. 6.
