RIFF, Reykjavík International Film Festival, offers a wide selection of new and independent cinema. Screening around 200 films from over 40 countries over ten days with special guests and events for film lovers and filmmakers.
As ever, there’s an emphasis on highlighting the work of young and emerging filmmakers and focused programs. This year the spotlight turns to Spanish cinema and Inuit horror films.
Immersive Cinema
Embracing Iceland’s handle as The Land of Ice and Fire, RIFF is screening Lars Ostenfeld´s ‘Into the Ice’. The 2022 documentary tracks a descent into Greenland’s ice sheet by three of the world’s leading glaciologists and will screen at the Jöklabíó (literally, glacier cinema) that’s actually inside a glacier.
Along similar lines, Neil Marshall’s 2005 horror ‘The Descent’, follows a group of girlfriends descending into a cave (and madness) screens in a lava cave outside the city. The geological theme continues with Sara Dosa’s award-winning documentary, ‘Fire of Love’, which tells the fiery love story of volcanologists and volcano whisperers Katia and Maurice Krafft.
Somewhere between fire and ice, water gets a look in with a screening of the Truman Show in an indoor pool at Sundhöll Reykjavíkur.
This year, there’s a special festival focus on Spanish cinema, with a program of contemporary Spanish cinema and special guest Pedro Alamodóvar’s muse Rossy del Palma as well as filmmaker/critic/educator /theorist Alexandre O. Philippe.
For more information and the full schedule, go to riff.is.
Top 10 movies filmed in Iceland.
