We met with Hrönn Marinósdóttir, the co-founder and director of the Reykjavik International Film Festival which is celebrating its 20th anniversary between 28 September and 8 October.

Cineuropa: The Reykjavik International Film Festival is celebrating its 20th anniversary. As the co-founder of the event and its director since the very first edition, how would you measure the progress it’s made?
Hrönn Marinósdóttir: The festival started out as a study project when I was working on my business master’s degree at university. Before that, I’d been a journalist and lived in Spain where I’d seen some brilliant films. So my friend and I decided to organise a small Spanish film festival. It was really well attended, so I thought maybe I had a knack for it, and when I returned to my studies, I used the opportunity to design an international film festival in Reykjavik. We started out with 16 films and two Icelandic filmmakers as guests of honour. I could never have imagined that, 20 years later, the event would be presenting 90 feature films and close to 200 short films, involving guests of honour like Isabelle Huppert, Vicky Krieps, Luca Guadagnino and Nicolas Philibert, as is the case this year.

As it stands, our festival is one of the most important cultural events in Iceland. We’ve attracted foreign professionals, presented excellent films, and we’ve earned the respect, I think, of the international film community. At the beginning, the idea was for Icelanders to discover different films from the ones they’d usually see in Reykjavik cinemas, which are often owned by distributors, so they aren’t really independent in programming terms. Lots of people assume that Icelanders wouldn’t be interested in these films, but on the contrary, we’re attracted lots of viewers, and attendance at the festival has risen continually over the years.

What is the festival’s editorial line? What kinds of films do you prioritise?
A good festival should offer films which appeal to everyone and others which push boundaries and are excellent, even though not everyone will go to see them. I’m lucky enough to have Frédéric Boyer heading up the festival programme; we share the same tastes, and the range of films we’re presenting is pretty wide. But the festival’s primary focus has always been new talent. That’s why the main competition, New Visions, is dedicated to first and second feature films competing for the Golden Puffin. We also shine a light on films of the future, with screenings of short films (whose seances are always full) from our RIFF Talent Lab, which hosts filmmakers preparing their first feature films in Iceland. But in order to promote all this progressive young cinema, we also need to screen other films, such as a selection of the best films to have toured the major international festivals over the past year, for example.

Another important factor is that Reykjavik is a young and vibrant town, and very different from the "old" European metropolises, so our festival is very informal: there’s no red carpet, the atmosphere is really relaxed and everyone comes together to discuss films which we hope will be surprising. And we’re also known for organising screenings in unusual places: a swimming pool, an ice cave... We try to ensure the festival atmosphere spreads throughout the town, so that we reach as many people as possible and continue to increase festival attendance numbers. It’s not always easy to attract people’s attention these days because everyone has Netflix at home, but our ticket sales rebound last year and I’m absolutely convinced that in a post-Covid society, we need to meet up in person and talk to each other. That’s why I’m optimistic about festivals like the RIFF.

What about the festival’s Industry Days which are taking place between 3 and 7 October?
Their goal is to shine a light on what’s happening in Iceland as a production region, because the country is a popular filming location for international teams, not least by presenting a work-in-progress line-up of Icelandic films. It’s also an opportunity to discuss the bigger issues shaking the industry and, obviously, to network in a relaxed and convivial atmosphere.

What is your view of the changes brewing in the global film industry, which are putting arthouse cinema under pressure?
I think there will always be a place for arthouse films. There are lots of brilliant filmmakers right now, a young generation of high calibre Icelanders, for example. But distribution is complicated because, on the one hand, platforms like Netflix don’t offer many of these types of films, and, on the other, there are fewer cinemas, as is the case in Iceland where they have shrunk in number since I started out. That’s why festivals like the RIFF are crucial, because they can sometimes be the only springboards for arthouse films, especially ones by young filmmakers. And it’s also a way to educate people about film, especially here in Iceland where it’s only been possible to study film at university since last year.