Popular From Iceland

For more than 100 years, The Bohemians have enjoyed their love of music. Some of them sing, some don't - but all of them enjoy a good company and good music.

Jan Mayen is a narrow island, 50 km long, northeast of Iceland. It belongs to Norway which has a weather- and military station situated there. The island is uninhabited but still has remains of the whaling and fox hunting that once took place there. Birdlife is abundant and a very beautiful stratovolcano, Beerenberg (2200m) crowns the island. The volcano is active, last eruptions occurring in 1970 and 1984.

A tragedy about a poorly raised spaceman from Reykjavík who tries to gain foothold on a distant dream planet and adapt to the lifestyle of the natives.

Johanna Sigurdardottir became prime minister In Iceland following the financial crisis of 2008. She was the first openly gay prime minister in the world. In her final days as Prime Minister, Johanna tries to get the parliament to pass a new constitution that was approved in a national referendum.

Comedy, philosophy, gunfights, music, and chases.

The story of Sóley is about freedom and oppression. Set in Iceland in the dark eighteenth-century, it relates the adventures of a young farmer whose horses - symbols of his independence - are missing. In his search for the horses and his freedom, he journeys across the uninhabited wastelands of the mountainous interior of the country. Here he encounters the legendary figures of folk tradition. The elf-maiden, Sóley, accompanies him on his way across the highlands. She is the incarnation of the dreams woven by the farmers of Iceland, poverty stricken and oppressed - dreams of a better and more humane way of life, envisaged as the lot of supernatural beings, concealed in the harsh, dramatic landscape of Iceland.

In Núpur, a chef from Reykjavík is hired to throw a party in the middle of winter at a summer hotel and an old boarding school. All information is scarce, but he realizes when he arrives at Núpur that he is alone there, at least for the first time. The film is based on the stories and experiences of former students from the boarding school in Núpur. Everyone who has stayed at Núpur knows Númur, but Númur is a former student of the school who took his own life while staying there almost 100 years ago. Ever since then, he has had a habit of pranking those who stay at Núpur.

A famous and lonely killer whale decides to escape his aquarium with weird consequences.

The filmmakers interview members of different activist organizations and discuss basic questions regarding activism and its role in a democratic society. Each organization is given the chance to voice their opinions and the audience is left to consider and critique their stands on key issues, including Amnesty International’s worldwide campaign for human rights and the local resistance to the damming of the Icelandic highlands.

The Chicken Commander is a unique film about a few Icelandic civilians, from a country that has no military, suddenly bearing arms at garrison KAIA (Kabul Airport). At the centre is the garrison commander Halli, who was transformed from an air-traffic controller in Reykjavik to a high ranking officer in a NATO army. The commander gave unprecedented and uncensored access to his garrison and the close to 2000 multinational troops stationed in the war torn country of Afghanistan. Through the often naïve eyes of the Icelandic men we experience the environment, both inside the camp and outside and get to know their emotions and sometimes humorous vision towards their own experience.

Ingólfur tries to make the perfect kitchen for his wife.

This film is about the painter Sveinn Björnsson (1925-1997), and his struggles to perfect his art. Following a wide-ranging exhibition at the Kjarvalsstaðir Art Gallery in 1989, he has become tired of the fantasy style which he had been developing for thirty years. What needed to happen in order for him to create something new? What sacrifices would it involve? This film is about that struggle experienced by creative artists. The film is not a biography, or a learned review of the painter's style, but it does show a side of the man which very few see. One evening, he feels he is not alone in his studio; it feels as if some being is there who wants to help him.

A documentary about downtown Reykjavík through the years.

In an unspecified war-torn European country, two young girls, aged about 8 and 4, struggle to survive, the older girl having to find food and shelter. When a truckload of soldiers, having gang-raped a discarded naked woman, spots them in a house, the girls are forced up into the attic, but there appears to be no escape. Then the older girl tears their clothing, smears red muck over them, and orders the 4-year-old to lie still. This has the desired effect of convincing the men the girls had been raped and murdered, and they leave.

All she wanted was to do something nice for her better half when he woke up on his birthday. But morning breath won’t be the only problem to be solved. An unerringly accurate and relentlessly honest comedy, brilliantly and unpretentiously acted by director Magnúsdóttir herself. The short film kicks off the TV series by the same name.