Once upon a time in Iceland(NaN)

Aridity Enclosure 1(en)

Locked away but not away; somewhere nearby but unreachable, a periphery so notfaroff it's always in sight.

Automatic Writing(en)

Charcoal animation, taken from from Point of View: An Anthology of the Moving Image (2003).

Goodbye, Don Glees!(ja)

Teen misfits Roma, Toto, and Drop call themselves the “Don Glees,” an informal name for their backyard adventures. One day, when the trio gets blamed for a nearby forest fire, they set off into the woods to prove their innocence. As disaster strikes their expedition, tensions flare between the friends as they realize that growing up has taken them on wildly different paths in life.

Lulu(en)

This highly stylized, critically acclaimed film from the 70's mixes silent film cards, a soundscape, color, opera music and atmosphere to explore the Freudian truths about men's fear of women that Wedekind powerfully exposed. A kinetic melodrama of the rise of a femme-fatale and her fate at the hands of Jack-the-Ripper. Rethinking Pabst's silent film and Alban Berg's opera.

Dropout(en)

Italian immigrant kidnaps a wealthy British woman, and they fall in love.

The Five Obstructions(da)

In 1967, experimental filmmaker Jorgen Leth created a striking short film, The Perfect Human, starring a man and women sitting in a box while a narrator poses questions about their relationship and humanity. Years later, Danish director Lars von Trier made a deal with Leth to remake his film five times, each under a different set of circumstances and with von Trier's strictly prescribed rules. As Leth completes each challenge, von Trier creates increasingly further elaborate stipulations.

The Dance(is)

Águst Guðmundsson directed this Icelandic period drama, adapted from the short story We Must Dance by William Heinesen, and set on an island in 1913. Pétur (Gunnar Helgason) narrates, recalling the days when mainlanders arrived for a wedding. Flirtatious Sirsa (Pálína Jónsdottir) marries Harald (Dofri Hermannsson), son of a wealthy landowner on the island. Offshore, a ship is sinking, so the men form a rescue party, returning with the captain, the engineer, and several sailors. With a storm gathering, the engineer dies. The clergyman requests an end to the festivities as a mark of respect. Sirsa protests, but her new husband brings the celebration to a halt. The group then fragments into different activities, drunken or otherwise, and the sensual Sirsa directs her attention toward the handsome Ívar (Baldur Trausti Hreinsson). The film's score features traditional folk music.

The Astronaut(en)

A short film recounting the travels of a lonely astronaut confronted by the unknown. Unfolding as a mystery, it becomes a carefully subtle, autobiographical examination of the feeling of loneliness and the existential issue of not understanding life on earth and ones place among it.

El Cardenal(en)

In his study a cardinal is surrounded by bizarre props in an atmosphere of decay.

Hangashore(en)

Haunted by nightmares and visions, Vera abandons her life in Iceland to chase the ghost of her disappeared father to the coast of Newfoundland. After settling in a remote fishing village, she finds herself drawn to Jack, a seal hunter leaving town with his failing boat and superstitious crew.

Beatles Electroniques(en)

Part of a collection of restored early works by Nam June Paik, the haunting Beatles Electronique reveals Paik's engagement with manipulation of pop icons and electronic images. Snippets of footage from A Hard Day's Night are countered with Paik's early electronic processing.

A Report on the Party and the Guests(da)

Europe, 2028. A humanlike creature washes ashore, carrying with him a motionless body he calls his mother. He is on a mission of some kind, reporting on the dwindling human activity in an increasingly automated world.

About Buenos Aires(es)

Eleven young film-makers got together to collaborate in this atypical project. Atypical not only because of its technical specs, but because of its narrative structure. There are several scenes with only the city in common, and more as a conceptual presence at that than as a precise geography. None of those scenes contains a single "story": Each one of them is part of a larger situation that we cannot see, as though the beginning and end of each "story" had to be filled in by the audience.

Sabath(sh)

Short experimental 16mm film.

It Hatched(en)

A young couple set out to open a guesthouse in a remote place in Iceland. They come for peace but soon find out that something evil is lurking beneath their basement and hunting them in their dreams while they sleep.

Moonwalker(en)

This fantastical movie inspired by the music of Michael Jackson features imaginative interpretations of hit tracks from the iconic 1987 album “Bad”.

Heartbeat(en)

La Escala(es)

Experimental film by Aldo Francia that consists in diverse situations through the 123 steps of the Santa Justina staircase in the Cerro Larraín of Valparaíso.

Charcot: Secret Poles(fr)

The adventures and exploits of Jean-Baptiste Charcot (1867-1936), an intrepid scientist and explorer who laid the foundations of modern oceanography.

Journey to the Center of the Earth(en)

An Edinburgh professor and assorted colleagues follow an explorer's trail down an extinct Icelandic volcano to the earth's center.