Reykjavík Grapevine - 29.06.2007, Side 20

Okay, so his name is actually Gunnar Guðbjörnsson. While he’s not officially
knighted, his studio space might just become the next Camelot for the
promotion of Icelandic music. Following a long love affair with the national
Hardcore and Heavy Metal music scenes, the twenty-something advertiser
decided that it was time to use his video making talents to promote under-
ground Icelandic rock. After years of scheming, the window of opportunity
was finally opened for Guðbjörnsson when Sirkus Reykjavík, the television
show for the cultural magazine by the same name, asked him to shoot and
edit one of their episodes on local music.
For each episode of ‘Sleepless in Reykjavík,’ Sir Gussi chooses either an
Icelandic Hardcore/Heavy Metal band or a band that will be performing in
Iceland. He then conducts a quick interview with them and often places and
edits it over with clips of the band’s old live shows or promotional materials.
Bored by the typical interview format, Sir Gussi opts for a host-less show,
allowing the musicians themselves to take the reigns and guide their own
episode: “I like to let the bands tell people what they want to tell them.”
The explanatory section of the episode is then followed by the payoff of
either a music video or a live performance. And the show is not without
its humour: The Cannibal Corpse episode is followed by their caricatured
cameo in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.
The ‘Sleepless in Reykjavík’ series currently consists of nine 10-minute
episodes and four ‘extras.’ The episodes tend to be short, as Sir Gussi
explains, because the series is just a ‘draft’ for a longer show at this stage.
Expansion seems to be the modus operandi for Sir Gussi, and if he is able
to find the right sponsors he will not only do episodes on other styles of
Icelandic music, but (as per the request of a widespread fan base) he will do
them in English! Though the immediate future of “Sleepless in Reykjavík”
seems to be confined to the bandwidths of Internet broadcasting websites,
Sir Gussi explains that a forthcoming episode will feature an interview with
Cannibal Corpse, who play NASA on July 7.
The response to ‘Sleepless in Reykjavík’ has been extremely positive,
especially among those involved with the music scene itself. Though the
series began only a month ago, most of the episodes on Youtube have
hundreds (if not thousands) of views, and the Cannibal Corpse episode
(episode 9) is featured in the ‘Suggested’ section on the Icelandic internet
broadcasting website Kvikmynd.is.
Up until this point, there has been little to no consistent video broadcast-
ing for Icelandic hardcore and metal bands. The closest thing to ‘Sleepless
in Reykjavík’ is a show called ‘Saturday Night with Jon Olafsson,’ in which
Olafsson conducts formal interviews with big-name Icelandic acts. Inter-
estingly enough, Sir Gussi is currently the only known Icelandic filmmaker
documenting the Icelandic underground music scene.
To see the videos, visit www.youtube.com/user/SIRGussi
or search kvikmynd.is for ‘Sleepless in Reykjavík.’
Sir Gussi: A Metal Knight
RVK_GV_09_007_SHORT DOCS_3
Text by Chandler Fredrick Photo by Leó Stefánsson
Director Rúnar Rúnarsson has been an ac-
tive member of the local film industry since
secondary school, when he started his career
as an independent filmmaker by making a
short-film with his friend, Grímur Hákonarson.
After taking the first step, he has gone on
to direct several films and worked as an as-
sistant for Icelandic directors in films such as
Thicker Than Water (2006) and A Man Like Me
(2002). His most acclaimed projects include
the documentary Leitin að Rajeev (2002) and
the short-film The Last Farm (2004), telling the
tale of an old man living in an isolated coun-
tryside farm. Both films received great critical
reviews and The Last Farm was nominated for
an Oscar in 2005 and won numerous well-
earned awards at festivals around the world.
Today, Rúnar is considered one of the more
promising young directors in Iceland.
“[The Oscar nomination] of course helped
my career a lot. I have always been full of
myself but at that point I finally got my due,”
he says. At the moment Rúnar is studying
filmmaking in Copenhagen. “I just finished
my second year at the National Film School of
Denmark. It is a tough four-year programme
but the school takes really good care of its
students and we get all the finance we need
to make our movies.” He’s spending his sum-
mer vacation in Iceland and plans on using the
time to film his latest short-film, Two Birds,
which he describes as a teenage film about
a Friday binge with a sweet-and-sour touch.
The film will be partly funded by the Film
Centre of Iceland. “The film is produced by
Zik Zak Filmworks and is in pre-production at
the moment. For the last couple of days I have
been meeting with actors and the schedule
is to start shooting in August.”
So far, Rúnar has mostly been focusing
on making short-films but upcoming projects
include two feature films he is developing.
“These are films about ordinary people. In
my opinion, we are all interesting in one
way or another. We all have a story to tell;
we have experienced some catastrophes as
well as happy times in our lives and found
ourselves in a crisis when we need to make
an important decision that will have some
consequences” he explains. “The challenge
is to tell these stories in an interesting way,”
he adds.
The audience will have to wait a bit to see
his first feature on the big screen as Rúnar
has two years left in school. “At first I plan to
finish my studies and take a vacation for six
months or so. Perhaps take my family to the
Caribbean or Aruba and get some tan, but I
will probably start filming after three years.
When asked if he has a long-term goal, he
says: “I just want to continue telling my stories
and become better at it. Hopefully people will
enjoy it.”
Representing a New Generation
Text by Steinunn Jakobsdóttir Photo by Leó Stefánsson
Silja Hauksdóttir is a 31-year old filmmaker
from Reykjavík. She graduated with a B.A.
degree in philosophy from the University of
Iceland in 1999, and directed her first film in
2004, although she has been working in the
film industry since the late nineties.
“I guess I first started to be interested in film-
making through acting in films,” Silja explains
when I ask her how she went from studying
philosophy to making movies. “I was dabbling
in acting with theatre groups when I was in
secondary school and through that I started
acting in films. I realised that I wanted to work
in this industry, but I knew did not want to
be an actor.”
After finishing her philosophy degree, Silja
started working in television and doing free-
lance work for various production companies,
before deciding to study directing at the FAMU
academy in Prague.
In 2000, Silja and her friends Birna Anna Björn-
sdóttir and Oddný Sturludóttir, wrote the best-
selling novel Dís, about a 23-year old girl who
fears she is too average, the adaptation of the
book later became her directorial debut.
“I wrote the novel with my friends, and
we then turned into a screenplay and as soon
as I finished the film school, the screenplay
was turned into a movie. That’s when I really
started,” She explains.
The film was well received, and despite
having little or no experience in directing, Silja
maintains that it was a positive experience
“Ignorance is bliss, you know. Of course I had
the advantage of knowing the character of Dís
extremely well, I had been working with this
story and its characters for years, the book was
published in 2000 and the movie was made in
2004 and I was working with the story more
or less for all that time.”
After finishing Dís, her next project was
a documentary, The Choir, which follows a
women’s choir on tour through Italy. Lately
she has directed several ‘docucommercials’ in
Africa on behalf of UNICEF as well as direct-
ing commercials for SagaFilm and working
as a writer for the award winning TV-sitcom
Stelpurnar (The Girls), which she will also direct
next winter. Silja is currently working on a short
film and a screenplay for a feature length film,
Chance of Rain, which she developed in 2005
when she joined the Binger Film Lab in Amster-
dam to study screenwriting. She prefers not
to reveal much about the project, saying only
that it will be a simple Reykjavík story about
relationships and people coming of age.
Our talk turns to the low number of women
in her field. “Filmmaking is probably the most
expensive form of art you can work with,”
Silja explains. “You need to have access to
money and I think that is the best explanation.
Throughout history, money and power have
been, and still are to some extent, used against
women. Now there is your headline.”
In Movies, Ignorance is Bliss
Text by Sveinn Birkir Björnsson Photo by Leó Stefánsson
_REYKJAVÍK_GRAPEVINE_ISSUE 09_007_FEATURE/FILMS/YOUNG TALENT
Step into
the Viking Age
Experience Viking-Age Reykja­vík a­t the
new Settlement Exhibition. The focus of the
exhibition is a­n exca­va­ted longhouse site which
da­tes from the 10th century ad. It includes
relics of huma­n ha­bita­tion from a­bout 871, the
oldest such site found in Icela­nd.
Multimedia­ techniques bring Reykja­vík’s
pa­st to life, providing visitors with insights
into how people lived in the Viking Age, a­nd
wha­t the Reykja­vík environment looked like
to the first settlers.
The exhibition a­nd
museum shop a­re open
da­ily 10–17
Aða­lstræti 16
101 Reykja­vík / Icela­nd
Phone +(354) 411 6370
www.reykja­vikmuseum.is
going home?
Sexually transmitted diseases
are more common than you think.
Take care – with condoms!
Directorate of Health