bits and pieces from the northern island.
Year two of our attendance to RIFF, Reykjavík International Film Festival. Traditions are not always meant to be broken and this year’s opening event was, as the previous, characterized by an extremely relaxed atmosphere. Nasa, a hugely popular club located in downtown Reykjavík, was the unusual setting for the event. Host of the night was … Read the full article →
Countdown to RIFF’s opening: the festival is starting tomorrow with Vincent Morisset’s documentary on Sigur Rós, Inni, which is one of the most awaited appointments of the 2011 edition of Iceland’s best-known film event. As RIFF’s main purpose is always to offer a space to emergent film-makers, the twelve films in competition in the New Visions … Read the full article →
Just a few more days before RIFF Reykjavík International Film Festival starts. The festival is in its seventh year and keeps on getting better and better. Here are some — expected — highlights of this 2011 edition. The films Kind of obvious, isn’t it? Films will be the core of the festival. Twelve films are … Read the full article →
There are more events to be brought to everybody’s attention. First of all, submissions to the Reykjavík International Film Festival – RIFF 2011, Iceland’s most important film event and one of the most relevant events worldwide, are now open. The 2011 edition of the film festival is going to take place from September 22 to … Read the full article →
I wonder why sense of measure is so uncommon among filmmakers. Sometimes I cannot help feeling classic Hollywood, despite its being hopelessly commercial in the intentions, had more sense of measure in its less accomplished works than many specimens of authorial film-making at their best. Sense of measure means having the guts, when necessary, to … Read the full article →
North Iraq, 2003, two weeks after Saddam Hussein’s fall. Ahmed (Yassir Taleeb) is a twelve-year-old boy. His only relative is his grandmother (Shehzad Hussen), an old woman of Kurdish lineage. They are traveling together looking for Ibrahim, Ahmed’s father, who was forced to join the Gulf War years before and never returned. A letter testifies … Read the full article →
Friedrich Dürrenmatt had written a film script entitled Es geschah am hellichten Tag (It Happened in Broad Daylight). Not happy with the ending he had devised for the first version, he decided to write a new one. This time he chose the novel format, completely changing the epilogue and the morals implied in the story … Read the full article →
Romanian filmmaker Cristi Puiu is an old acquaintance of the Reykjavik International Film Festival: in 2005 his The Death of Mr. Lazarescu won the Discovery of the Year Award. To the Special Presentations category of this this seventh edition of the film festival, Puiu brings his Aurora, a film that not only he scripted and … Read the full article →