RIFF premieres Ten in Iceland

RIFF proudly premieres in Iceland Ten, a documentary about Of Monsters And Men. The film is directed by Dean DeBlois, who has previously directed Sigurrós' musical films, Heima, and Jónsi's, Go Quiet. DeBlois is best known for the series How to Train your Dragon and the cartoon Lilo & Stitch. The director has through the years formed a special link with the Icelandic country. It's been ten years since OMAM's first album, My Head Is An Animal, was first released and marked the band's victory run on the charts of the Western world. When the band's 2020 world tour was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, they figured out another way to celebrate this anniversary.

Instead of playing the music from their anniversary EP at large venues and festivals around the world as had been planned, they travelled to places around Iceland that hold special meaning to them, both individually and as a band, and played these songs without an audience, just with and for each other, in intimate settings around Iceland. The documentary shares this 10-year anniversary with this little window into a part of OMAM´s world. 

Ten had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in June. The artistic director of the festival is Frederic Boyer, who is also the artistic director of RIFF.
Ten is part of the documentaries that provide an insight into the ever-changing world of music, a regular part of the RIFF program.

Other films in the Cinema Beats category are:

• Meet Me in the Bathroom by Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace,
• KAPR CODE by Lucie Králová,
• Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song by Daniel Geller and Dayna Goldfine,
• Rewind and Play by Alain Gomis
• and the EFA nominated Karaoke Paradise by Einari Paakkanen.

Singing for company

The documentary reveals the importance of karaoke singing for the mental health of the Finnish people. Evi, Finland's most experienced karaoke host, likes to hug her customers' pain away. She packs her karaoke gadgets for one more trip and sets off across Finland's Nordic landscape - Finns have found a unique way out of loneliness: they sing.

Director Einari Paakkanen was selected for the Berlinale Talents in 2018. He has directed both feature films and documentaries. Besides being a film director, Einari is one of Finland's best location managers and he is a poet.

Hot titles on RIFF

RIFF offers a unique opportunity to get to know the latest in European and international cinema. On the program, everyone can find something to their liking from around 200 titles and films from over 40 countries. We are presenting 10 hot films below - first two on the list were nominated for the European Film Awards today:

Corsage
Marie Kreutzer

Empress Elizabeth of Austria is idolized for her beauty and renowned for inspiring fashion trends. In 1877 Christmas Empress turns 40 and is officially deemed an old woman. She starts trying to maintain her public image. Vicky Krieps was awarded for Best Performance at Cannes for her role as the empress. The film has been nominated for EFA award 2022.

Alcarràs
Carla Simón

As far as they can remember, the Solé family have spent every summer picking the peaches from their orchard in Alcarràs, a small village in Spain. But this year’s crop could be their last, as they face eviction. For the first time, they face an uncertain future and risk losing more than their home.

Carla Simón (born 1986) is a film writer and director raised in a small Catalan village. She studied Audio-visual Communication in Barcelona and in California. In 2011 she was awarded a scholarship by La Caixa for a Master’s program at the London Film School, where she directed the short films Born Positive, Lipstick, Las pequeñas cosas and Llacunes. Her first feature film, Summer 1993, received the Best First Feature Award and the Grand Prix of the Generation Kplus International Jury at Berlinale 2017. The film has been nominated for EFA award 2022.
 

Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song
Daniel Geller and Dayna Goldfine 

An exploration of Leonard Cohen as seen through the prism of his renowned hymn, “Hallelujah” and the song’s dramatic journey from record label reject to chart-topping hit; and moving testimonies from major artists for whom the song has become a personal touchstone. 

The Emmy-award-winning directors and producers Geller and Goldfine have jointly created critically acclaimed multi-character documentary narratives that braid together the personal stories of their protagonists to form a larger portrait of the human experience. Their most recent film, The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden (2013) had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival and its European premiere in Berlin.
 

Pornomelancholia / Pornomelancolía
Manuel Abramovich

Lalo posts nude photos of himself and homemade porn videos for his thousands of followers on social networks. Lalo directs his own life, but in private, out of character, he seems to live in a permanent melancholy. Where does desire go when life turns into a sex show?

Ótemjureið / Rodeo
Lola Quivoron

Julia finds herself drawn into a clandestine and volatile clique in illicit biker’s gatherings and strives to prove herself to the ultra-masculine group. She is faced with a series of escalating demands that will make or break her place in the community.

 

My Love Affair with Marriage
Signe Baumane

Songs and fairytales had led Zelma to believe that love would solve all her problems as long as she abided by societal expectations. But as she grew older something didn’t seem right with the concept of love.
Signe Baumane is a Latvian-born, Brooklyn-based independent filmmaker, artist, writer, and animator. She has made 17 award-winning animated shorts but is best known for her first animated feature, Rocks in my Pockets (2014).
 

Lynch/Oz
Alexandre O. Philippe 

From the filmmakers' filmmaker, Alexandre O. Philippe, a documentary about the impact of The Wizard of Oz on David Lynch's career. Lynch/Oz is Alexandre's tenth feature film and tells about the enduring symbiosis of the ever-popular adventure, The Wizard of Oz, and David Lynch's distinctive style in the spirit of pop surrealism. As usual, Alexandre immerses himself in the many layers of elaborate filmmaking and brings out what is not tangible at first glance. He is assisted by an impressive group of critics, writers and directors, each of whom paints a unique picture of Lynch and Oz.
 

Fire of Love
Sara Dosa 

Katia and Maurice Krafft loved each other and volcanoes. For two decades, the daring French volcanologist couple roamed the planet, chasing eruptions, documenting their discoveries in photographs.
 

Into the Ice / Rejsen til isens indre
Lars Henrik Ostenfeld 

Despite many years of research, no one knows how fast the Greenland ice sheet is melting. Lars Ostenfeld seeks to find that out with three of the world’s leading glaciologists as they descend 200 metres into the ice – further than any human has gone before.
Lars Ostenfeld has many years of experience within science and nature documentaries. Most recently, he directed and filmed episodes of DR’s major nature series Wild, Wonderful Denmark and the documentary Tracking the Wolf. Lars is behind several award-winning programmes for DR and TV2, including Ph.D. Cup, created in cooperation with the Lundbeck Foundation and Information, The Pain Experiment and Nature Live. Together with DTU Space and astrophysicist Anja C. Andersen of the Niels Bohr Institute, he was also behind DR’s Live from Space. Lars is also the creator of The Polar Bear Live, which was streamed directly to 200 TV screens during the climate summit COP22 and Live from the Depths, broadcasted live from a submarine 40 meters underwater and 100 kilometres offshore at the bottom of the North Sea.
 

Kyrrahafsskáldskapur / Pacifiction /
Tourment sur les îles
Albert Serra

In Tahiti, the High Commissioner of the Republic and French government official, De Roller, navigates the high-end ’establishment’ as well as shady venues where he mingles with the locals. Tensions are rising. Especially since a persistent rumor has been going around.
The Director of the film, Albert Serra, thrusts the viewer into a humid and dangerous atmosphere of this artistic, political thriller. You can almost feel the place and time in the slow-paced narrative that reveals the scope rhythmically and without escape routes.
Benoît Magimel is widely praised for his performance as the High Commissioner De Roller. He clearly exhibits the pressures of the official, the world, and the film itself.

More categories and nominated films will be announced in the coming days. Stay tuned to RIFF.