World Film Report: Iceland (January 2010)

Iceland Film Scene – Local:

Business:

Two stories dominated the past month; the amazing box office success of Ragnar Bragason‘s film Mr. Bjarnfredarson and the 23% cut in public funding for films. It‘s still unclear how the cuts will affect projects, but it looks likely that film production will slow substantially down this year, resulting in fewer Icelandic films in 2011. Ironically 2010 looks like a bumper year for Icelandic movies; at least 10 films are heading for the big screen in the coming months. There has never been that many in a single year.

The government has indicated that further cuts are on the cards for next year and public broadcaster RUV is also in trouble; a big industry player, it has now to deal with major downsizing (over 25% in total for the past 14 months) which will very much affect its capacity to finance films, series and docs. RUV‘s Head of Programming has just resigned, citing personal reasons. The Icelandic film industry‘s struggle was the subject of CNN‘s Screening Room at the end of December. The episode can be seen here.

On the positive side, box office was up 12% in 2009. Icelandic films kept their market share at 10% and production was up (hence the number of films this year). For the lowdown visit these numbers.

New Releases:

Mr. Bjarnfredarson, the darkly comic culmination of Iceland’s most popular TV series, The Night Shift, The Day Shift and The Prison Shift opened on December 26th and became the biggest opening ever for a local film. It has so far sold over 60.000 tickets. After holding behemoth Avatar at bay for two weeks (probably the only film in the world to do so), it‘s still going strong and has the potential to pass the current box office champion, Baltasar Kormákur‘s Jar City (84.000+). Critics response can be gauged here and The ICN TV Interview with director Bragason can be viewed here. 

Veteran Fridrik Thór Fridriksson premiered his new film, Mamma Gógó, on January 1st to glowing reviews, however the film has been unable to compete with blockbusters Mr. Bjarnfredarson and Avatar. The film is a bittersweet look at a film director’s struggle with his career as he has to deal with his mother’s Alzheimer condition and features autobiographical elements which the director discusses in an ICN TV Interview here.

The latest teaser trailer is out for Valdís Óskarsdóttir‘s much anticipated King‘s Road, starring Daniel Bruhl and Gisli Örn Gardarsson.

Iceland Film Scene – Abroad:

The Finnish public broadcaster YLE has bought the successful Channel 2 series The Night Shift, The Day Shift and The Prison Shift. The Shift series have been optioned by production company Reveille, the producers of The Office and Ugly Betty and plans are under way to film a US pilot of The Night Shift. Sony Pictures and Fox TV are on board the project.

Ásgrímur Sverrisson is the editor of Iceland Cinema Now.