Reykjavík Grapevine - mar 2020, Qupperneq 12
12 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 03— 2020
Here’s Look-
ing At You,
Paradise: The
Uncertain Fate
Of Bíó Paradís
Bíó Paradís, an
arthouse cinema and
Reykjavík cultural
institution since
2010, now faces the
very real possibil-
ity of shuttering
its doors for good.
Cinema manager
Hrönn Sveinsdót-
tir explains why Bíó
Paradís matters, and
how it can be saved.
Words: Andie Sophia Fontaine
Photos: Rut Sigur!ardóttir
For a long time, if you wanted to see a
film in Iceland, you would be relegated
to catching one of five blockbusters
rotating through any of the larger cine-
mas on the outskirts of town. Arthouse
and indie flicks could be enjoyed only
in the comfort of your own home.
There was nowhere to gather with
others with the same weird tastes as
you to enjoy a good film, least of all
downtown.
All that changed in 2010, when Bíó
Paradís opened its doors on Hverfis-
gata. Since then, it has not only served
as an arthouse cinema; it has been a
cultural centre, hosting such events
as Polish Film Night, the French Film
Festival, the Stockfish Film Festival,
the Reykjavík International Film Festi-
val and more, and has even endeared
locals as a place to catch a drink at the
start of the night.
So when news broke on January
30th that Bíó Paradís will be closing
on May 1st—largely due to the prop-
erty owners wanting to raise the rent
by roughly 300%—it sparked both grief
and outrage in the public at large, with
everyone asking the same question:
how can we save Bíó Paradís?
From short
film to Miss
Iceland to the
US Embassy
"I started making music videos and
short films as a teenager, with my
brother,” cinema manager Hrönn
Sveinsdóttir tell us. “We were a whole
scene of teenagers who would compete
in short film days. This was such a
normal thing to do [in the mid 90s].
I'm from the VHS generation and life
was all about video. One of the things
that happens in those days is that
everything becomes digital."
This led to Hrönn’s foray into the
national broadcasting network RÚV,
running a show on youth culture and the
music scene with a DIY approach that
would end up setting a trend picked up
by the now-defunct television station
Skjár1. However, it was the Miss Iceland
competition in 2000 that served as
the unlikely inspiration for Hrönn to
make her first feature-length film.
“I saw this ad [for the competition]
that was like 'over 165cm, no more than
this many kilos, no child, no husband,'”
she recalls. “That's creepy. Yet on
their website they had this line about
'we want to emphasise the integrity
and ambition of the modern woman'
but they have these requirements?
Total paradox.”
So Hrönn joined the competi-
tion, filming every step of the way.
The resulting documentary, 'Í skóm
drekans' (‘In the shoes of the dragon’),
co-directed and edited by her brother
Árni Sveinsson, kicked off a lawsuit
which nearly made it to the Supreme
Court—a landmark case that is still
taught in law school today.
Shortly thereafter, Hrönn moved
to New York, where she met her
husband, and studied film and politics
at Brooklyn College. In 2007, the couple
moved back to Iceland, and Hrönn
began working in protocol at the US
embassy in 2008.
"My first job was to welcome Condo-
leeza Rice, and I'm not the most formal
person you'll ever meet,” Hrönn says.
“So I'm still surprised they hired me,
but I was able to impress them with
my knowledge of American culture
and being somewhat familiar with the
media environment in Iceland."
The job, however, was not exactly
fulfilling. "I began asking myself where
I'd gone wrong in life, because I'd always
been creative, and suddenly I'm sitting
in an office filling out forms and having
meetings about absolutely nothing,"
she recalls. But then, in 2011, she saw
an ad for a managing director for Bíó
Paradís. There, the adventure began.
A rocky start
The attraction to be a part of a place
like Bíó Paradís was informed by
Hrönn’s time in New York.
"You don't understand what a luxury
it is [to have good cinemas] until you
move [to New York], and even though
Iceland at the time had a vital music
scene and interesting visual arts,
cinema-wise it was just a complete
wasteland,” Hrönn recalls. “It was just
the same five blockbusters screen-
ing at all the cinemas. You were lucky
if something was on at Háskólabíó.
I really missed the whole concept of
cinema culture, with these festivals,
special screenings, the obscure and the
cult."
As exciting as
the prospect
was, there
were chal-
lenges ahead.
"You don't just open a cinema, open
your DVD player and press Play," Hrönn
explains. In a nutshell: there are three
distributors who each run their own
cinemas. Each distributor has output
contracts with Hollywood studios,
and these cinemas trade films with
one another. This made getting mate-
rial very daunting, especially as 50% of
ticket sales has to go to distributors.
"It was a lot of work for one person,
and it was very hard to figure this out,"
she says. "We didn't have gear. We only
had debt."
It’s important to understand that
Bíó Paradís is not an institution run
by any one person. Rather, it is a
non-profit organisation, owned and
operated by the Professional Society
of Filmmakers; FK, the filmmaker's
union; SÍK, the association of Icelandic
producers; and the film director's guild.
The turn-
around
Things began to improve when Hilmar
Sigur!sson, now the CEO of SagaFilm,
became chair of the board, and began
drafting plans for financing gear,
acquiring better equipment and secur-
ing additional funding. It took some
doing, but in the autumn of 2013, it
struck Hrönn that , "Finally we're a
real cinema. But of course, it's never
smooth sailing. The balance of money
and what we do has been really hard. As
soon as one thing breaks down, we have
to cut costs somewhere else to fix it."
In addition to this, the combined
total percentage of the subsidies that
the state and the City of Reykjavík pays
into Bíó Paradís only covers about 17%
of the total cost. That said, there have
been successes, too.
"What we do here, you can't do at
home, because it's mostly about the
social experience,” she says. “You want
to go see a film that you probably can't
see anywhere else. You want to be
with people—even if it's a film you've
seen many times, at [Bíó Paradís’]
party screenings you want to see [a
movie] with people who love the film,
and scream at the screen and have
a beer with your friends. Same with
arthouse or documentary screenings.
You're there to talk about the film with
people, and that's what the work here
at Bíó Paradís is based on, this commu-
nity. And that's why we're becoming
steadily more popular as the existen-
tial crisis in the blockbuster cinema is
mounting in contrast."
Clouds on
the horizon
Despite a run of good years for the
cinema, more turbulence lay ahead.
“In 2013, we did a 7 year-long lease
with the then-owner [of the building]
at a reasonable rate,” Hrönn says. This
helped, as any extra money made went
into repairs and paying down debts.
When the property was acquired by
new owners, Karl Mikli ehf., shortly
thereafter, it was clear that they had
their own ideas.
"The new owners made it very clear
from the first day that they wanted
to raise the rent, and they were quite
disappointed when they found out
that there was a lease agreement in
place," Hrönn says. At one point, they
suggested leasing out the foyer for
some other concept so the owners
could make more money and not raise
the rent on the cinema. In response,
Hrönn made a presentation for the
owners on what Bíó Paradís is and
what they do. "I ended by saying 'We're
a landmark. We intend to be here in 20,
30 years. We're not some pizza place or
some fad.'”
“This is not about them, though.
They're guys in business, what do we
expect them to do? They want to make
money. I guess they chose the wrong
“For all the problems
with this building, you
might see these big
cinemas with all their
fancy gear, but they
don't have this.”
“You're there to talk
about the film with
people, and that's
what the work here at
Bíó Paradís is based
on, this community.”
“This is not just about
rooms to screen films
in. It's much more
than that. It's this
social space, this
community.”