Discoveries from Iceland World Cinema

A young woman finds a magic chamber in her house, leading her to encounters with characters from the past.

Shot on 16mm film over the course of three years, this film documents hiking trips taken alone in the highlands of Iceland. The film explores the boundaries of individual and personal space, versus the open spaces of nature, which belong to no one.

Ever since they were kids practicing in the snow in Iceland, they were told they would never play in a major football tournament. This is a true underdog story of how a nation of only 330.000 defied the odds with attitude and a new head coach. The filmmakers had unlimited access to the Icelandic national team from the beginning of their journey to their ultimate childhood dreams - Euro Cup 2016.

In Núpur, a chef from Reykjavík is hired to throw a party in the middle of winter at a summer hotel and an old boarding school. All information is scarce, but he realizes when he arrives at Núpur that he is alone there, at least for the first time. The film is based on the stories and experiences of former students from the boarding school in Núpur. Everyone who has stayed at Núpur knows Númur, but Númur is a former student of the school who took his own life while staying there almost 100 years ago. Ever since then, he has had a habit of pranking those who stay at Núpur.

On board a factory trawler from a small village in the north of Iceland, a group of fishermen have found an unusual way to deal with the rough life at sea. They put together a band - No Bone No Skin. The music of - No Bone No Skin stays close to home and deals with the everyday life of the fishermen, their longings, hopes, fears and desires. In fact it is their own work songs

Framed as a vintage sex-ed film, a cruise ship penetrates a fjord, recasting mass tourism as an intimate act of intrusion, attraction, and environmental violation.

Áramótaskaup: 2017 is an Icelandic TV movie satirizing the events of the past year.

A documentary on the nature around Sogið in Iceland and the people living there. The focus is on the farmers and visitors staying at summer houses.

Horses on a farm in Iceland become gravely ill due to suspected fluoride pollution from a nearby factory. Authorities, unwilling or unable to investigate the matter thoroughly are of little help. Undeterred, the farmer embarks on a quest for the truth, only to face stonewalling at every turn.

Sól is a 19 year old boxer, but her toughest fight is against obsessive compulsive disorder. When her mother is hospitalized, she puts immense pressure on herself to win the national championship for her. As she pushes herself beyond her limits, her mental struggles begin to take control.

A Hive Cluster Manager on the fringes of the Animal Internet enters the sacred GAIANET simulation. We follow the protagonist as they attempt to connect a new region of Earth to the Zoocratic Wild Web.

Amid landscapes marked for disappearance, a ritual of remembrance unfolds as grief surfaces for a loved one long lost to illness and a world now returned to only in memory.

Andri, A young football coach with a big ego reexamines himself when he encounters opposition from a young boy he coaches

A fisherman washes ashore, but for mysterious reasons, he has lost his ability to speak.

Story of a miraculous birth.

Dagur, a young car salesman, struggles to meet society’s expectations of masculinity. When a dangerous man threatens his girlfriend Brynja, he freezes in fear and shame. To salvage his pride, he lies to his coworkers, claiming he defended her heroically.

A grieving man suddenly finds himself in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. One of the few films in the world to successfully and continuously switch from 'landscape' to 'portrait'.

For this woman, it's never too late to start again. Hanna Pálsdóttir is an 83 year old Icelandic woman who turned her life around after retiring from her life as a banker and enrolling in art school to become a painter. This documentary follows Hanna throughout the creative process of preparing for her latest exhibition as she recalls her life as an activist and branch manager before painting appeared in her life.

Someone You Once Saw in a Dream is an oneiric feminist surrealist film that acts as a poetic metaphor for the futility of feminine beauty standards, while the presence of lurking men permeate the film’s quaint athletics.

In Camouflage (Boulder/Iceland) I utilize the photograph object to investigate the difference between a lithic and a human sense of time. My embodiment as a boulder within the Icelandic landscape is intended to reference a glacial erratic—a tangible remnant of geologic memory and time within the landscape.

As one of the most striking examples of human-caused climate catastrophe, the Sea of Aral is gradually running dry. Various hand-processing techniques overlay a time-lapse of this slow demise as the erosion and cracking of the emulsion mirrors that of the landscape. The soundtrack is inspired by the original score composed by John D. H. Greenwood for Man of Aran (Robert J. Flaherty, 1934).

Go on an adventure with Alexander Kirchner. A stylist, clothes designer and overall the coolest man in 101 Reykjavík, Iceland.

The imagination of children leads us into a fantasy narrative of play, where adults are nowhere to be found and the harsh reality of nature and imagination takes over. Soon enough, however, we are brought back to earth when playtime comes to an end, in this case with the devastating closure of a unique Icelandic kindergarten.

Among visitors and interviewees are refugees from the Donetsk region, an artist and the city‘s mayor who explains the quality of the water and its significance for the city in order to continue. The audicence come also across a group of people preparing an outdoor festival in the woods and have a glimpse into a theater.

The comics by Hugleikur Dagsson are well known in Iceland but can his humor and stand-up work abroad the country?

For a week over the summer every year an art festival for young people takes place at Seyðisfjörður on the east coast of Iceland.

An existential mediatation on a womans life as a musician.

A man returns to his home in North Dakota & struggles with rediscovering his life, after having left his heart in Scandinavia

Faceland is a documentary where young Icelanders express their views on the ever-growing, popular online connection program called Facebook. What does the belly dancing, horror movie fanatic, Guðrún think about the endless relationship status updates? How does the nurse student Gunnar describe how users can discover your superhero match?. Does Facebook really connect different people with similar interests? Or are its users guilty of cyber-stalking and spying? Six young Icelanders tell about their lives on- and offline, how Facebook has become a major factor in their social communications. Even if the cyber-world is here to stay, viewers can’t help but wonder how long this fast-growing communication program will last. The movie was shot in March 2009, at which time 45% of Icelandic population were facebook users. Almost all individuals between the ages 20-30 were active users and in every café, every bus and school people were talking about it.

The film tells the story of the charming, ninety-three year old lady Gudny, who is staying in the nursing home of Hrafnista in Hafnarfjördur, Iceland. She tells tales of her pet rat from her home region in eastern Iceland, paints, sings in the choir, plans to stage a theatrical sketch and play the leading role. We also meet Sigurdur Olafsson, who claims to be in Paradise, and Klara Tryggvason, who gets her visits in mail and by phone; most of her children are living abroad. We visit Leifur Eiriksson, who changes making his bed into a ritual of physical exercise. Gudny has only learnt the Lord's Prayer and the Bible Stories, but she knows how to tell a good story and radiates the wisdom of the ages. "Why can't we talks about death?", she says. "My grandchildren ask: Grandma, are you sure you'll be with God?" "Yes, quite sure".

This documentary is an invitation to an adventurous travel about the central highlands of Iceland within and surrounding the Vatnajökull Galcier - Europes larget icecap. A travel begins at the surface of the hot spot under Vatnajökull, where fire and ice go hand in hand.

Discourse on Films is a documentary treating a new field of Icelandic culture, that is film history. Thorgeir Thorgeirson - a recipient of the honorary Edda (Award of The Icelandic Film Academy) "for his contribution to film production and general film culture in Iceland" comments on trends and tendencies of the local film industry, from the so called pioneers - as the first semi professional amateurs generously have been named - up to the more recent production of feature films. With professional skill and a clear dissident's mind Torgeirson is able not only to analyze Icelandic film history but also to sketch up a friendly-ironical picture of the “dress up society" in general.

A film about the mezzo-soprano Engel Lund.

In July we fallow puffin catchers going on small boats to uninhabited rocky islands where they catch the flying birds into nets. This hunt is very dangerous as the men have to operate from narrow ledges in cliffs high above the surfing ocean. In August we see another side of the puffin/man relationship, as the children lovingly collect helpless puffin chicks from streets and alleys and keep them in cardboard boxes at their homes for the night until the can help them to the sea in the morning.

The documentary illustrates the northward drift of contaminated sea water through streams and currents, and the unforeseen consequences of such pollution on the delicately balanced ecosystem of the North Atlantic. The film reminds us of the damage already done, by oil an toxic waste, to the wildlife of enclosed seas such as the North Sea and the Baltic. During the last years, environmental issues have become increasingly important world-wide. To the people of Iceland, a small nation whose economy is based on the fishing industry, it is of vital importance to keep a close watch on the condition of its nearest environment, the northern seas.

This film is about the largest work of art ever produced in Iceland, the mural on the front of the Búrfell hydro-electric power station. Sigurjón Ólafsson was commisioned for the work, and the film describes the process of the work from the time that he and his assistant, Gudmundur Benediktsson, began the project at Sigurjón's studio until they finally completed it where it stands at the isolated power plant. Sigurjón devised an innovated method for producing the mural. A mould was first cut out in insulating plastic which was then fitted to the concreting construction of the building.

A documentary about the perennially controversial issue of the U.S. Nato Base in Iceland. After overing the historical background of the bace, the film deals with the present situation from three different viewpoints: A) The role of the base in the context of international warfare in the North Atlantic and how Iceland would be defended in case of crises; B) The social impact that the presence of these forces has had on everyday life in Iceland, especially the surrounding communities; C) The economical importance of the base in Icelandic society. The film is an objective study of the situation and its author's purpose is to inform rather than influence the viewer.

A film about the Municipal Water Supply in Reykjavík which was founded in 1909.

For centuries driftwood from the European mainland and all teh way from Siberia has washed up on the shores of Iceland. This film shows a driftwood expedition casting off at a fishing village on the east coast of Iceland, bound for the deserted Langanes headland in the far north-east. The film not only shows the collecting of driftwood, but also deals with the history of the settlement on the headland, narrated in part by the last farmer to leave.

Social critique, made on the occasion of the 1100 year birthday of the settlement of Iceland in 1974.

About the underwater eruption which led to the formation of the island of Surtsey (1963 & 1966). The film is partly based on an older film about the first half of the eruption (Surtur fer sunnan, Ó.K. 65)

A film about the activities of the US military base in Keflavík, Iceland.