US film "Land Ho!" is the opening film at RIFF this year. It is is a tale of friendship and adventure that chronicles two older men attempting to recapture their youth while on a trip in Iceland. So far, Land Ho! has reviewed excellent reviews, garnering acclaim for its "feel-good nature" and "quirky comedy."
The film is written by Martha Stephens and codirected with Aaron Katz. "Land Ho!" originally made its debu...
RIFF | INNOVATION – NETWORKING – DIALOGUE
The aim of Reykjavik International Film Festival is to become one the foremost film festivals in Europe, placing continued emphasis on presenting not only progressive, independent cinema and a wide range of documentaries touching on explosive subjects, but also a young and unusual Capital in a country bursting with energy and creativity. The geographic location makes RIFF a natura...
The Reykjavík International Film Festival, RIFF, takes place between September 25th and October 5th. Screenings take place at Háskolabíó, Tjarnarbió, Bió Paradís and at the Nordic House. A variety of events will take place in Reykjavik and Kópavogur. This year’s festival is certainly a weighty one with a multitude of award-winning films being screened as well as those competing for the acclaimed Golden Puffin.
Last year&rsquo...
RIFF Industry Days is the title of a series of workshops and talks to be held during the Reykjavík International Film Festival over the space of four days. The aim to facilitate better mutual knowledge and understanding between important players in the International audiovisual market, and to form a basis for a joint direction within the industry to pursue in the face of mutating markets. On top of that you will get to go to cool cocktail pa...
His latest film, Mr.Turner shown at the festival
Distinguished British director, Mike Leigh will be guest of honour at the Reykjavík International Film Festival, RIFF. His latest film, Mr.Turner will be screened at the festival. Leigh has directed various films throughout the years and gained attention for his different take on topics such as the British lower-classes. His most famous films are undoubtedly Naked and Secrets &Lies ...
Few films can boast such raw and gritty realism as VOLCANO (ELDFJALL, Iceland, 2011). While the film is set in its native Iceland, it is a far cry from the expansive Nordic Eden we have been exposed to after Eastwood's FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS (2006) and TOMB RAIDER (2001), with VOLCANO exposing the more tangible truth of everyday life in Iceland of a fisherman (Hannes) and his wife and the driest peak in their lives, where everything they once knew is about to erupt and explode into an ev...
The first time I had heard about Béla Tarr was from a Serbian filmmaker friend who told me that if I wanted to know some real avant-garde plucky cinema, I hadn’t lived until I had seen a Béla Tarr film. As a writer myself, I’m big on unadulterated organic creativity and this exemplary director has gone against all the rules doing everything a filmmaker is taught not to do, making himself quite a name in his 34 years of doing so. Tarr even holds the credit to having directed one of the ...
In Retrospect... From RIFF 2010 to MIPCOM 2011... Last year the film at RIFF 2010 which stirred up quite a debate was this documentary, WHEN THE DRAGON SWALLOWED THE SUN (2010), which threatened to destabilize the friendly relationship between China and Iceland (the film is about China's oppressive hold over Tibet). Now one year later the film is being sold at the world's biggest TV market, MIPCOM, at Cannes; October 03-06, 2011.
Interview with director Dirk Simon from ...
BELA TARR receives Lifetime Achievement Award at RIFF, 2011
The legendary, exemplary, unconventional and inspiring filmmaker Bela Tarr traveled from his native Hungary to Reykjavik, Iceland last week during the 8th annual Reykjavik International Film Festival (RIFF) to receive the honorary award for Lifetime Achievement for greatness in filmmaking. The president of Iceland, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, awarded a statue of the nation's symbolic puffin to an emotionally ...
photo from Venice poster at La Biennale, 68.
This past week I attended the 8th annual Reykjavik Film Festival (RIFF) after going nonstop from Venice La Biennale, then to TIFF and then to RIFF. I was tired of course but so anxious to catch up on the films that I had missed at the former festiv...
ADALBERT'S DREAM by Romanian filmmaker Gabriel Achim When I met Romanian director Gabriel Achim, we had just pruned together for hours in Iceland's famed Blue Lagoon thermal baths, so needless to say we were dehydrated, uber relaxed and giddy. I asked him why he was at RIFF and he explained, 'Well, I'm a Romanian director'. I told him I knew lots of great Romanian directors and then he, ever so humbly, assured me that he was the worst Romanian director that exists. I laughed and I think ...
THE PIPE!
When director Risteard O'Domhnaill (aka Richie O'Donnell) accepted his award for the RIFF ENVIRONMENTAL AWARD in Reykjavik on October 01, 2011, Richie stood up confidently in front of hundreds thanking the RIFF jury and voters for his 'puffin statue of aluminum'. He had the whole crowd in stitches with his witty humor and singsong/rolling Irish accent.
The film has held a successful run as yet, festival hopping for over a year now with a sweet final triumph at RIFF...
Olga Dykhovichnaya (Marina) Sergei Borisov (Andrei)This was indeed the welcome surprise of the Reykjavik International Film Festival (RIFF) this year. Newcomer Director/Writer/Producer Angelina Nikonova and Writer/Producer/Actress Olga Dykhovichnaya (Marina) graced the festival with their presence in its final days to attend the Q and A screening of their film TWILIGHT PORTRAIT (‘Portret V Sumerkakh’, 2011) and the award ceremony at the end. Little did these passionate Russian Indie filmm...
It’s a noteworthy irony that one of the eco-documentary films awarded at this year’s Reykjavik Film Festival is ECO-PIRATE: The Story of Paul Watson (2011), a film that focuses on the notorious eco-pirate, Paul Watson, who once had been named ‘persona non grata’ in Iceland after he had sunk two whaling ships in the Reykjavik harbor in 1988. The film tackles a heated political debate from the 1970’s till present day about the whaling industry, which is responsible for decimating the wor...
RIFF 2011 Awards
New Best Icelandic Short Film Award established to honor Thor Vilhjálmsson
Record festival attendance nears 27,000 admissions
RIFF 2012 September 27 – October 7
"Auf wiedersehen papa".
The Golden Egg Winner was "Auf wiedersehen papa" by Sandra Nedeleff: "An everyday drama that navigates from stone cold reality into a fairytale and back again, throwing in a few twists along the way. This is a beautifu...
still from the film THE TURIN HORSE (2011) THE TURIN HORSE (2011), the last film by celebrated Hungarian filmmaker Bela Tarr, screened in Reykjavik tonight at the 8th Reykjavik Film Festival (RIFF). The film is 2 ½ hours long but despite its hard subject matter and rough arthouse style, it holds onto its full audience from beginning to end. At the end of the screening the master filmmaker himself attended a Q and A for inquiring indie film buffs. This is a difficult film to work through and ...
photo still from filmRAW MATERIAL... Screening at the 8th annual Reykjavik International Film Festival (RIFF), 2011. RAW MATERIAL (Greece, 2011) by director Christos Karakepelis. This documentary left me with chills, not only because of its raw subject about the declining Greek economy but the worsening of the situation of immigrants to Greece and the inhumane lives they lead. When we follow the lives of three Roma from Albania, two Indians, a Turk and a Greek who subsist on the collec...
EVEN THE RAIN (2011) screens at the 8th annual Reykjavik International Film Festival (RIFF) 2011, where environmental concerns seem to underline this year's festival focus. EVEN THE RAIN was directed by Iciar Bollaín and written by award winning screenwriter Paul Laverty. The film takes place in the village of Cochabamba, Bolivia, in 2000. The premise was to make an epic film about Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas. It is a fiction film in the style of a documentary about ...
THE MILL AND THE CROSS at RIFF 2011. Polish director Lech Majewski of the film THE MILL AND THE CROSS (2011) appeared at the 8th annual Reykjavik International Film Festival (RIFF) 2011, September 22- October 02. Starring Rutget Hauer, Charlotte Rampling and Michael York, THE MILL AND THE CROSS (2011) by director Lech Majewski has crossed new borders with his film which is an experimental exploration and hybrid between the life inside famous Flemish painting by Pieter Bruegel the El...
ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA, RIFF 2011 Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s latest film ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA (2011) premiered in competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival where the film won Grand Prix. A Turkish and Bosnian co-production, the film screened to audiences at the 17th Sarajevo Film Festival in the Open Air Theater on July 25th, 2011. The cast and crew attended a press conference at SFF on July 26th to answer questions in detail about their much beloved new film. ...
LOVERBOY at RIFF 2011LOVERBOY (2011) is the newest film by the Mitulescu brothers, Catalin and Daniel. LOVERBOY opened at Cannes 2011 in ‘Un Certain Regard’ and screened in competition in Sarajevo at the 17th Sarajevo Film Festival where the stunning lead actress, Ada Condeescu, won a merited Best Actress award for her magnetic and captivating performance in the film as a her loverboy’s greatest conquest. Now this September it has made its Nordic debut at the 8th annual Reykjavik Internati...
film still of 'Faust' (2011)
Russian director Aleksandr Sokurov's FAUST (2011) held its world premier in Venice at the 68th Venice Film Festival this year taking the coveted Golden Lion prize for best picture. It then went on to screen its North American premier at TIFF in Toronto and has now continued its round to Iceland at the Reykjavik International Film Festival (RIFF).
Based on the German myth of the same name, this unusual masterpiece film proves that it is not star power ...
Reykjavík International Film Festival, Iceland Express and Express Travel offer guests travel packages to the festival. The packages are for 3, 5 or 7 days from London, Copenhagen, Berlin or Warshaw. Included in all the travel packages is flight, accommodation at one of Center Hotels with breakfast and a festival pass to screenings and more. To read more about the packages or order, please click here.
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The 6th Reykjavík International Film Festival will take place 17th – 27th September 2009 all around the capital city. The festival has gained a secured place in Icelanders and international guests' cultural lives. As usual, around 100 movies will be shown, the most exciting pieces from the world of films around the universe in various categories. Documents in focus, Children's program and special societies in focus are a few. Lots of special events take place at RIFF; panels, concerts, art ex...
