A cinema that is slow to industrialize
It wasn't until the establishment of Nordisk Films, another Danish production company, in 1919, that the film industry really took off. It produced The Story of the Borg Family, an adaptation of a novel by Gunnar Gunnarsson, recounting the inner conflict of a young Icelander who must choose between staying on his island or moving to the mainland.
The first productions were mainly Danish or foreign. Jacques de Baroncelli filmed Pêcheur d'Islande in 1924. With the island's limited means and resources to allocate to this new industry, island filmmakers could only develop a cottage industry. However, some of them managed to make a name for themselves, such as Gunnar Robert Hansen and Gudmundur Kamban, who co-directed the thriller Hadda Padda for Nordisk Films in 1923.
Emergence of a young Icelandic cinema
It was some time before the world took an interest in Icelandic cinema, particularly with the success of the film Children of Nature, directed by Friðrik Þór Friðriksson and awarded the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 1991. He also directed Cold Fever (1995), the story of a Japanese man who crosses Iceland to pay tribute to his parents, who died in a car accident on the island.
The Icelandic Dream, released in 2000 and directed by Róbert Ingi Douglas, won four EDDA Awards. From the same director, the remarkable comedy Esprit d'équipe (Team Spirit), released in 2006, tells the story of an amateur gay soccer team trying to find its place in a world of heteronormative professionals.
Baltasar Kormakur is another important figure in Icelandic cinema. In 2001, he directed Reykjavík 101 , an adaptation of an Icelandic novel that paints an acid portrait of a young woman in the capital.
A committed auteur film made by women
The most successful Icelandic film of recent years is undoubtedly Woman at War (2018), by director Benedikt Erlingsson. The crusade of a woman, masterfully played by Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir, against Iceland's aluminum industry. In a similar vein, Þorfinnur Guðnason's documentary Dreamland (2009) looks at the construction of the Kárahnjúkar hydroelectric plant.
The French-Icelandic film Back Soon (2008), by Sólveig Anspach, tells the story of an Icelandic poet who decides to leave the island and, to finance her project, sells her marijuana business.
Singer Björk has performed and collaborated on some of the great films of our time: Dancer in the Dark (2000) by Lars Von Trier, and Drawing Restraint 9 (2005) by artist Matthew Barney.
A chilly but ideal setting
The island attracts foreign productions for its landscapes. This was recently the case with the filming ofArctic, directed in 2018 by Brazilian Joe Penna, and telling the story of a man trapped in the Arctic (Mads Mikkelsen) following the crash of his plane. One of the most famous scenes filmed on the island takes place at Lake Jökulsarlón in one of the James Bond films, Die Another Day (2002). Sequences from Batman Begins (2005) and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) were also shot here. Director Rúnar Rúnarsson's Sparrows (2015) takes place in the north-western fjords, notably Isafjördur and Flateyri, and Lamb (2021), shot on a farm in northern Iceland, won a prize for originality at the Cannes Film Festival. More recently, the film Godland (2022) deals with the colonization of Iceland. And let's not forget series such as The Valhalla Murders (2019) and Blackport (2023).
