Discoveries from Iceland World Cinema

In this documentary we get to know the Icelandic writer Einar Már Guðmundsson who won the Nordic price for literature in 1995. Einar Már Guðmundsson is one of the best known writers in Iceland and his works have been translated into english and the other Nordic languages. Besides his books of prose and poetry he has also written film manuscripts and in the documentary we see, among interviews with the writer himself and commentators on him and his work, clips from the films.

A band's and their crew's miscommunication leading them to being on the opposite sides of the country leads to comic consequences.

Lisa wants to take a cruise, hubby Finnbogi schemes to make money. He buys a dilapidated bakery. They get lucky when Karolina, who bakes great cakes, offers to work for them. She's the mother of Marta, head of the area's largest bakery, and the two have quarreled. Marta can't abide mom's rebellion or the rival bakery's success, so she inveigles Finnbogi to invest in porn toys without telling Lisa. Where does he get the cash? From his son Bjartmar, who has promised Russian sailors he'll arrange the purchase of ten Landas. The Russians are coming to collect their cars, Finnbogi hasn't sold a single dildo, hard-bitten Marta plans one more nasty trick. How can Lisa get her cruise?

The life path of a middle-aged woman and a stubborn refugee prisoner travel across the country in search of adventure while they still can.

An elderly man goes about his daily routine until his grandson shows up and is eager to play football with him. Their mismatch on the football pitch is quickly apparent, with the youngster running rings around his senior. The old man with a bruised ego and full of reminiscence of his youth begins to prepare for their next encounter.

While based in a remote NATO radar station in Iceland in late 1960's, Warren occasionally time traveled into the future - to the year 2006 - and now as his former destination in time becomes his present, he returns to prevent the death of a woman he fell in love with during his travels.

A real estate agent struggles to sell his own house.

Two employees of the Icelandic Road Administration spend the summer painting lines on the winding roads as they both find themselves at a crossroads in their lives.

On opening night at the Reykjavík City Theatre, veteran actress Ingrid is thrown into turmoil when a foreign journalist arrives, igniting a backstage confrontation laced with regret, secrets, and decades-old wounds.

A chamber orchestra is working out of a rundown theatre in Reykjavik. Financial hardship places a great strain on the band and the lead violinist, Sigrun. The annual grant from the city is coming to an end so the band hires a world renowned cellist in order to save the band. The media goes wild and money starts to flow to the band again. Too bad the cellist is not a very nice person – he is quite the assgrabber and a two faced cheater. Too late to fire the star and the grand concert that will save the band is about to begin when the cellist chokes to death – 15 minutes before the concert. The band decides to risk it all and play the concert with a dead solo artist – not really thinking about how to end such a macabre show.

Songs and games with Sigga and Maria

The film is about a visit from outer space, where the aliens turn out to be uncomfortably small.

When Sveppi's best friend Villi is kidnapped by the bad guys. Sveppi takes it upon himself with his buddy Goi to rescue him and an incredible adventure unfolds.

The film deals with unexpected and unexplainable loss. Due to an accident, the life of a happy family turns into a larger-than-life tragedy.

Young man faces a small change in his life. The forbidden fruit is always desirable.

The actress is to produce a play with the local amateur group and old romantic flames are rekindled. At the same time an American army unit is making experiments with a new and powerful energy source in the vicinity, promising the community a prosperous future.

Strýta is a story of two twelve year old boys, who live in a small town in the east of Iceland. Just outside of town is an abandon house and rumor has it, there is a gun there. The boys, having nothing better to do, decide to steal a car and take a journey to the abandon house to find the gun.

A year after loosing his family in an accident, Gunnar decides to honor their memory by walking to the place they died. On his way he meets Ewa, a young, Polish woman running away from her past.

Inni is a live motion picture and album by Icelandic band Sigur Rós released in 2011.The concert footage was directed by Vincent Morisset and filmed at the Alexandra Palace in 2008. It was released on 7 November 2011 on various formats, including vinyl, DVD, Blu-ray and CD. Theatrical versions are also being shown around the world from late 2011. The songs played within are Ný batterí, Svefn-g-englar, Fljótavík, Inní mér syngur vitleysingur, Sæglópur, Festival, E-Bow, Popplagið and Lúppulagið. The bonus material contains All Allright, Glósóli, Hafsól and Við spilum endalaust.

A six year old boy of divorced parents spends a weekend at his dad's farm. Not knowing how to connect with his son, the father goes about his day working and treating the boy as any other farmhand. When they come across the mother's seriously wounded horse they finally find a way to connect as they carefully go through the process of putting the horse out of its misery.

Tells the story of the last day in the life of a dictator who knows that this time he won't be victorious.

Magnús Blöndal Jóhannsson is remembered as one of the pioneers of modern Icelandic music. The conversation between Hans Ulrich Obrist and Magnúsar Blöndal took place in Reykjavík on August 9, 2004. Nine days later, he lapsed into a coma and died on January 1, 2005.

Einar, a charismatic history teacher is committed to a remote mental asylum in Iceland. During the bank holiday weekend he initiates an uprising that transforms into a proper revolution where the lunatics literally take over the asylum.

The film revolves around Hildur, a national celebrity and socialite who has to look for a job when her boyfriend Jolli is sent to prison. She finds a job at Astrópía, a store that sells role playing books and her immersion into geek culture changes her outlook on life.

There is an old barbershop in the center of town. This is where Einar has cut hair for half a century or so. He has seen good times and bad times but independent from contemporary tendencies, he has always maintained his own style, but in recent years he has had to deal with the inevitable, his customers grow older, and one by one they slowly disappear. One day they simply don’t show up for their scheduled haircut. But what happens when one of his customers keeps coming after he is dead.

After experiencing a certain void when the premier of their film “The Third Pole” was cancelled due to the Pandemic. The film makers decided to go on a journey with their cameraman Andri Haraldsson and capture those strange times.

The tale of Goldilocks is sometimes viewed as a cautionary tale that imparts a lesson about the hazards of wandering off and exploring unknown territory. The point about safety and shelter. But in its essence it was a tale about an intruder who could not control herself when encountering the possessions of others.

The Icelandic national women's football team has the chance to qualify for the European Championship Finals for the first time in history. To make the dream come true the team has to win all their upcoming matches - against much bigger nations.

When Peter is called to work on his day-off a chain of events starts to unravel that effect him and the people around him.

At the beginning of the film, three medical students are hunting for a body to use for research purposes. They hear of a tramp that has been found dead. The body is in the mortuary and as no-one seems to know who he is; they decide to take the body for dissection without formal permission. When the body is placed on the operating table, one of the students recognizes the man, and scenes from his acquaintance with the dead man flash back. At the same time certain things begin to happen that they had not allowed for.

Íþróttaálfurinn has managed to change the villagers' negative attitude towards sports, healthy food and all diligence. But when he leaves and the villagers have to manage on their own, they turn out to be very unstable and easily influenced by the criminal Glanni Glæpur, who turns up disguised as a very rich man. In fact, he has stolen the president's car and intends to corrupt the villagers so that he can sell them un-wholesome powder-food and become mayor of the town.

An art-house comedy about an ordinary family running the unusual business of elf tourism and spiritual sessions. Their house is built around an elf stone, which is sacred to the wife Lara, who is blessed with a sixth sense. When they get an offer to sell the stone at a high price, her husband Óskar is really tempted.

When Ukrainian filmmaker Anastasiia Bortuali is displaced to Iceland, she documents her fellow refugees, capturing their fragility and strength against a dramatic backdrop of northern lights and volcanic eruptions.

“Just Like a Painting by Eggert Pétursson” is a documentary on the painter Eggert Pétursson. In moraines near Skaftafell Glacier and close to the Arctic Circle at Tröllaskagi peninsula we discover the film’s dynamic cornerstone on our trip through the Highlands. Our guide is botanist Thóra Ellen Thórhallsdóttir, who connects the dots between our experience of the Icelandic nature and the floral diversity of Eggert’s flower paintings. Eggert is a conceptual artist with a realistic vision of form and structure, but the imagination is tied to interpretation and his own sense of painting. From his book of sketches, surrounded by a musical ode to Mother Nature, the flora’s perseverance and complexity matches the world of the painting while emphasizing the coexistence of these two worlds.

Months after they broke up, Gunnar receives a strange phone call from his ex-boyfriend, Einar. He sounds distraught, like he's about to do something terrible to himself. Gunnar drives up to the secluded cabin where Einar is holed up and soon discovers that there's more going on than he imagined. As the two men come to terms with their broken relationship, some other person seems to be lurking outside the cabin, wanting to get in.

Day of fulfilled wishes. Dream of young actress Elísabet may become true, completely out of the blue. Something so sweet to think about, and yet - why all this shivering? --- Careful now, darkness falls.

Two men in their late twenties, Jim and Frank, old friends from childhood, both emaciated and very grunge guys, meet again after many years. Jim, trying hard to get his life back on track, is pulled in to his old habits of drugs and crimes by Frank and his friends from their old neighbourhood. They set out to help Frank's father to brake out of jail who in return finances their "shopping trip" to Amsterdam.

This is a tale of forged paintings. Nothing could be more ordinary. Only the action takes place in Iceland, a country with a population of 300.000, where everybody is cousin with everybody else and has been for generations. The minor incident suddenly becomes a major affair.

Two city folk go on a trip to deserted villages around the country, laden with spirits, guns, and other ammunition. The trip is intended as an outing in nature, but quickly the journey turns into pure horror.

The film is the first of three about the misadventures of two friends, Þór and Danni. Two friends working at a restaurant get fired from their jobs and after seeing an advertisement for the fishing industry of the Westman Islands, decide to go there and make some money. The islands become a perfect setting for many funny and strange situations, especially after word gets around that the two are spies from the Ministry of Fisheries.

2024 Áramótaskaup, an annual Icelandic TV movie, satirizing the events of the past year

A young woman, whose heart is plagued by violence, falls in love while the forces of Good & Evil scheme to gain dominion over her soul.

Personal and elaborative documentary about Iceland's first real pop star, Bjorgvin Halldorsson.

A story of love and betrayal. One summer night, two friends, Ketill and Eyjólfur, are heading to an isolated farm in a taxi, in search for Herdís, former fiancé of Ketill. He has been abroad all winter and wants to know why she left him the day before his departure, last autumn. Reluctant to face her for fear of what he may find out, he is urged on by Eyjólfur. The course of events takes an unexpected direction.

Aron is trying his best to cope with life. In search of serenity, he imitates male stereotypes and dives into all the cliches of the material world. However, underneath all the perfect appearance, lies something tragic and unexpected.

Loftur Guðmundsson films the Icelandic industry. Although only a few industrial companies are shown. They are, Ölgerðin Egil Skallagrímsson, Brjóstsykurverksmiðjan Nói, Kaffibrennsla Ó Johnson & Kaaber, Verksmiðjan Hreinn, Kornmylla and Mjólkurstöð Mjólkurfélag Reykjavíkur. In the film you can see a machine culture that is rising up in the city. However, the aforementioned companies paid Loftur for the film and it can therefore be said that this is an advertisement for individual companies.

When Gunnar's son returns from vacation with a new girlfriend, Gunnar is forced into a dilemma that threatens to expose a dark family secret.

It is the night before Christmas and all through the decrepit school house nothing is stirring, not even a mouse. Well that is not exactly the truth, but what has happened in this weather beaten building in the barren Icelandic tundra is more akin to cruel fantasy than stark reality. A few days ago the participants of an experimental rehab clinic came there in order to cast out their inner demons, stay away from temptation and finally discover a little about their sober selves. That didn’t go quite according to plan, but they discovered Santa was real.

Kalli, a young boy living with his mother in the suburbs of Reykjavik, thrives in the world of movies and computer games. When he is sent to spend Christmas with his father's new family up north at an isolated farm, Kalli meets his stepsister, who he does not get along with. Soon he decides to run away, but only to be hit harder by reality and Kalli has to learn how to fight "real life" challenges while encountering imaginary and fictional creatures.

A documentary about the history of scrapie in Iceland.

The story of Jón

The comedy Our Own Oslo is an everyday love story. We follow the strained courtship of the wildly differing Harald, forty year old engineer and Vilborg, an unemployed single mother. They are both tangled up in their own pasts and their attempts at love end in disaster.