Iceland review - 2015, Síða 10

8 ICELAND REVIEW
FiLm
after studying at the Icelandic
academy of the arts, Guðmundur
arnar Guðmundsson moved to
Denmark, where he now lives, to study
screenwriting. His talents recently secured
him awards for two of his short films.
Hvalfjörður (2013) received a special men-
tion in Madrid, Spain at the Festival de
Cine de alcalá de Henares (alCINE) in
November 2014 and his most recent film,
Ártún (2014), was awarded the Grand prix,
the main award, at the Brest European
Short Film Festival in France later the
same month.
“Winning these awards is a great honor
for all the team and it helps get support for
the next project. It’s also nice to know that
people understand what you’re trying to
do,” Guðmundur tells me when I reach him
by phone shortly after the announcement.
Both films feature boys at a pivotal stage
in their lives as they go through various
rites of passage. What does Guðmundur
BRIDGING
THE CHaSM
By Mica allan. PHoTo By Páll StefánSSon.
Icelandic writer and film director
Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson
recently won international acclaim
for two of his short films.
consider makes a compelling story? “For
me it’s all about the character,” he says. “If
you have an interesting character, even if
it’s someone you don’t like, he will make
your story. I work a lot from my own
life and draw inspiration from that and
then when I start writing, the characters
transform into having their own life. The
better you know a character the better
you know the story as the character can
actually take charge of the story himself,”
he explains.
partly inspired by a beautiful dream
about a whale, the short film Hvalfjörður
is set in a majestic and sparsely-populated
Icelandic fjord in the western part of the
country. With a small cast, the film is big
in the issues it explores, the emotions
exposed and the unspoken bond between
two brothers; not to mention the brood-
ing presence of the Icelandic weather.
Guðmundur’s more recent short film
Ártún similarly portrays a young country
boy’s journey across the chasm from ado-
lescence into the more complicated world
of adulthood. Venturing into Reykjavík, it
focuses on a boy’s pursuit of his first kiss
amidst the mysterious world of girls and
cigarettes.
Currently, Guðmundur is casting for his
first feature film, Heartstone, a coming-of-
age story where he continues to explore
themes of friendship and adolescence. The
film centers on the friendship of two teen-
age boys in a small fishing village as they
discover new feelings they never knew they
had.
plans for the film’s location are still in
development. Guðmundur refers to it as
“the most beautiful town in Iceland” but
remains tight-lipped about the location’s
name, as nothing is yet official.
What we can be certain of is that his next
film is set to focus on life’s big issues on the
journey from childhood to adulthood. *
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