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FESTIVALS Iceland

Reykjavik’s Stockfish Film Festival focuses on female filmmakers

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- “Guys can make those lousy films, but they will always have another chance; women only have one shot,” says festival director Friðrik Þór Friðriksson

Reykjavik’s Stockfish Film Festival focuses on female filmmakers

Reykjavik’s Stockfish Film Festival – the third edition of the original Reykjavik Film Festival founded in 1978, supported by Iceland’s Film Directors’ Guild, the Producers’ Association, the Society of Women in Filmmaking, and the Actors’, Cinematographers’ and Dramatists’ Unions – will unspool between 23 February and 5 March, this year focusing on female filmmakers. 

“Guys can make those lousy films, but they will always have another chance at filmmaking because they are boys; women, on the other hand, if they fail, will never get funding for another film. They only have one shot,” said the festival’s director, Icelandic filmmaker Friðrik Þór Friðriksson, whose Children of Nature (1991) was nominated for an Oscar. 

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At the festival, Iceland’s Society of Women in Filmmaking will present a study analysing the number of women filmmakers involved in the releases in Icelandic cinemas. And Friðriksson will present four works in progress by Icelandic female directors, “three of them newcomers – and Kristín Jóhannesdóttir, with Alma, is a genius". 

French writer-director Alain Guiraudie will be at Reykjavik and will be honoured with a retrospective, including his Cannes entry Staying Vertical [+see also:
film review
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interview: Alain Guiraudie
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]
(2016); also, Croatian filmmaker Rajko Grlić, now director of Croatia’s Motovun Film Festival, will be screening three of his films, including The Constitution [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Rajko Grlić
film profile
]
(2016), with his British producer Mike Downey also in attendance. 

Australian director Benedict Andrews, who has most recently helmed stage productions of Macbeth and King Lear at London’s National Theatre, will show his feature debut, Una [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, based on Scottish playwright David Harrower’s play. Slovenian director Damjan Kozole will show his Karlovy Vary-awarded Nightlife [+see also:
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interview: Damjan Kozole
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]
, while US director Josh Fox will be available online for a Q&A about his How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can’t Change

German composer-pianist Ulrike Haage, who scored German director Doris Dörrie’s film Fukushima, Mon Amour [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
(also showing at the festival), will perform a concert, and the festival’s Shortfish competition supporting up-and-coming filmmakers will present the winner with an ISK 1 million (€9,000) award. During the festival’s first weekend (26 February), the ceremony for the Edda Awards – Iceland’s national film prizes – will take place at the Hilton Reykjavik Nordica hotel.

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