Mr. Bjarnfredarson is film of the year and The Prison Shift dominates the TV categories at last night's Edda Awards. The two close relatives received six Eddas each. Strong criticism of the recent cutbacks in film funding and at pubcaster RUV dominated the evening, culminating in The Academy…
Director Gísli Snær Erlingsson has been appointed Head of Singapore's Puttnam School of Film, Lasalle College of the Arts. Erlingsson, a director of multiple-award winning features such as Benjamin Dove (trailer)and Ikingut (trailer) has been based in Tokyo…
On the eve of the Edda Awards ceremony Iceland Cinema Now interviewed Pálmi Gudmundsson, Channel 2‘s (Stöð 2) Vice-President of Programming, about the station‘s success with original fiction series in the last few years and the road ahead.…
Interviewed by Iceland on Screen's Ben Hopkins, director Einar Thor delivers a no-holds-barred analysis on the politics of Icelandic cinema affairs through the years. "When funding and vague policy review, in the course of two decades from 1979 onwards, eventually seemed to be tailored to fit the…
Hjálmar Einarsson’s debut feature Messenger (Bodberi) is heading for the cinemas this spring. A supernatural thriller with political overtones, it depicts a young man who’s dreary life is disrupted by vivid revelations of the afterlife, revealing a demonic conspiracy at work within his own community, that could not only bring down the country’s economy, but also incite the total collapse of society.
"We live in an era defined by enforced silence, not so much about the world’s harms, but about its reasons. This silence lies at the heart of our childlike existence. Cinema is being fenced in and turns a blind eye", writes ICN's Berlinale correspondent Haukur…
Writing from last January’s Palm Springs International Film Festival, Hollywood Reporter’s Sheri Linden states that “it’s easy to see why Reykjavik-Rotterdam a lean and well-paced crime thriller of the one-last-job subgenre, has inspired an English-language redo”, adding that “its kinetic energy and bursts of brutal violence rest upon a solid foundation of well-defined characters and dry humor”. And Variety’s Robert Koehler finds the film “an uncommonly commercial item with brawny action, strokes of humor and a besieged rooting interest (played effectively by Kormákur).”
Two Brits, director Henry Bateman and producer Heather Millard, relocated to Iceland last year to embark on a documentary called Future of Hope, focusing on the possibilities the country faces in the aftermath of the economic crash. The film is well under way but in order to finance the post-production, the filmmakers are appealing to the public to donate funds through website Kickstarter.com. ICN spoke with the producer Heather Millard, about the film.
Variety reviews Thorfinnur Gudnason and Andri Snaer Magnason's documentary Dreamland and finds the film "even more pertinent in light of Iceland's October 2008 economic meltdown and the country's moves toward recovery." Writing from the Gothenburg Film Festival, reviewer Alissa Simon adds: "Illustrating how the government blithely sold precious…
Icelander Karl Júlíusson is the recipient of the US ADG Awards for excellence in production design for a feature film in 2009. The award, for his work in Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker, was handed out at a ceremony in Los Angeles Saturday evening.…
