The Reykjavík International Film Festival (RIFF) is turning its attention to projects in development as its Industry Days return from 29 September-3 October. Alongside the established Work in Progress Showcase, which this year brings together ten projects at different stages of production, RIFF is launching the Arctic Script Lab, a pilot development programme for emerging screenwriters and writer-directors working with stories rooted in Arctic and Nordic experiences. The professional programme also includes the third edition of the Nordic Voices Think Tank, alongside panels, master classes and meetings with international industry guests.

The Arctic Script Lab, developed by RIFF in partnership with the Nuuk International Film Festival and co-funded by the Nordic Culture Fund, brings together ten writers working on eight first or second feature-length fiction and documentary projects. Following an online development phase in August, the participants will meet in Reykjavík from 30 September-3 October for mentoring, peer feedback and industry encounters. Icelandic filmmaker Dagur Kári (Noi the Albino, Dark Horse, Virgin Mountain) is mentoring the participants in the pilot edition.

While geographically and formally diverse, several of the selected projects circle around questions of land, resources, and the relationship between small communities and much larger economic and political forces. Finnish filmmaker Elina Talvensaari, whose Lady Time won the Jussi Award for Best Documentary, is developing Sokli, about plans for a mine in Finnish Lapland and a group of older women whose connection to the land stretches back generations. In Hilke Rönnfeldt's Goods, deep-sea mining becomes the backdrop to an encounter between a scientist searching the seabed for resources and a ship captain with a very different relationship to the natural world. Rönnfeldt's short A Study of Empathy won the Golden Leopard at Locarno.

Questions of history and who gets to tell it also run through the selection. Greenlandic writer Akku Kristensen and Mo Tan's dark comedy Aviliaq draws on the changing meaning of a Greenlandic word to explore Inuit cultural memory and the legacy of Danish colonisation. The Ship That Wasn't There by Claus Pilehave revisits the 1959 sinking of the Hans Hedtoft, shifting attention towards Greenlandic knowledge of Arctic conditions that has largely remained outside previous accounts of the disaster. Elsewhere, Pearl of the North by Pétur Óskar places Norwegian investors in an Icelandic island community of just 164 inhabitants, while Trygvi Danielsen's Faroese genre project Holes to Hell mixes organised crime, geopolitical tensions and Huldufólk folklore.

The Work in Progress Showcase, taking place on 2 October, meanwhile gathers ten fiction and documentary projects from Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Finland, Portugal and Poland, with co-production partners extending to Canada, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Estonia and Italy. The selection ranges from early development to post-production, with the showcase designed to connect filmmakers with international co-production partners, financiers, sales agents and distributors.

Among the more established names is Icelandic filmmaker Baldvin Z, whose Life in a Fishbowl and Let Me Fall both premiered at Toronto. His Icelandic-Canadian drama Dark Ocean, currently in development, follows a young deckhand entering the closed and physically demanding world of an Icelandic fishing trawler. Produced by Glassriver together with Canada's Terminal City Pictures, the project has Baltasar Kormákur, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Thorsteinn Bachmann and Thorvaldur Kristjansson attached to its cast.

Experienced producers are also prominent across the selection. Júlíus Kemp, whose credits include The Icelandic Dream, Let Me Fall and the international co-productions The Bothersome Man and The Unknown Soldier, is producing Brynja Valdís Gísladóttir's Marathon Before Menopause, a dramedy currently in pre-production.

Portuguese filmmaker and producer Rodrigo Areias appears twice in the line-up. Having produced more than 150 films, with projects collecting awards including the Golden Shell at San Sebastián, and prizes at Venice and Locarno, he is producing Jorge Quintela's Mermaid in the Sun while also presenting his own documentary Ghost Voices at the rough-cut stage. The latter, co-produced with Finnish filmmaker Joonas Berghäll, travels through Europe's geographical and cultural peripheries through their languages, songs and soundscapes.

The remainder of the WIP selection reflects a broad mix of emerging voices and projects: Szymon Radzio's Polish-Icelandic documentary Community observes the transformation of rural Iceland through tourism; Miguel Munhá's Portuguese-Finnish Capricorn Syndrome combines psychological drama with an absurdist premise; Skúli Andrésson's documentary Bræðslan/When the Fjord Awakens looks at music and community life in Iceland's Eastfjords; Finnish filmmaker Olli Salmi brings along the psychological drama Couple of Strangers; Ágústa M Ólafsdóttir is developing a documentary about Faroese singer Eivør Pálsdóttir; and Vala Ómarsdóttir's Icelandic-Estonian coming-of-age drama Just a Kid is already in post-production.

Beyond the development programmes, RIFF Industry Days has invited international figures including Plattform Produktion producer Erik Hemmendorff, TrustNordisk CEO Susan Wendt and ARTE deputy general director Rémi Burah to Reykjavík, while this year’s Country in Focus, Portugal, will be represented across the programme through a visiting delegation, co-production discussions and three WIP projects.

Here is the full list of projects taking part:

RIFF Work in Progress

When the Fjord Awakens – Skúli Andrésson (Iceland) - in production
Producer: Olgeir Pétursson (Heima Studios)

Ghost Voices – Rodrigo Areias (Portugal/Finland/Italy) – rough cut
Producer: Joonas Berghäll (Bando à Parte, Oktober Oy, Karel)

Capricorn Syndrome – Miguel Munhá (Portugal/Finland) – in development
Producer: Ana Sofia Nunes (Jângal Studios, David & Golias, Films Films Films Oy)

Eivør – Ágústa M Ólafsdóttir (Faroe Islands/Iceland) – in development
Producer: Rakel Garðarsdóttir (Vesturport)

Just a Kid – Vala Ómarsdóttir (Iceland/Estonia) – in post-production
Producer: Hlín Jóhannsdóttir (Ursus Parvus, Alexandra Film)

Mermaid in the Sun – Jorge Quintela (Portugal) – in development
Producer: Rodrigo Areias (Bando à Parte)

Community – Szymon Radzio (Poland/Iceland) – in development
Producers: Katarzyna Stasiełuk, Guðný Guðjónsdóttir, Sara D Baldursdóttir (Haka Films, Kontent Productions)

Couple of Strangers (Naapuri) – Olli Salmi (Finland) – in post-production
Production company: Artesons Oy

Marathon Before Menopause – Brynja Valdís Gísladóttir (Iceland/Denmark/Sweden/Spain) – in pre-production
Producers: Júlíus Kemp, Aðalheiður Kristbjörg Jensdóttir Mathiesen (Kisi Productions, Asta Film, Harmonica Films, KaBoGa Films)

Dark Ocean – Baldvin Z (Iceland/Canada) – in development
Producers: Arnbjörg Hafliðadóttir, Guðgeir Arngrímsson (Glassriver, Terminal City Pictures)

Arctic Script Lab

Dog Days (working title) – Andrea Björk Andrésdóttir (Iceland/Denmark)
Holes to Hell – Trygvi Danielsen (Faroe Islands/Iceland/Denmark/Norway/Greenland/USA)
Aviliaq – Akku Kristensen, Mo Tan (Greenland/Poland)
Pearl of the North – Pétur Óskar (Iceland)
Electrified – Laurens Pérol, Joshua Jádi (Norway/Austria/Germany)
The Ship That Wasn’t There – Claus Pilehave (Greenland/Denmark)
Goods – Hilke Rönnfeldt (Denmark/Iceland)
Sokli (working title) – Elina Talvensaari (Finland)