At Reykjavík’s Nordic House, Stockfish played host to an open and impassioned – and at times frustrated and angry – discussion about the “Status of the Icelandic Film Industry”, in the context of the festival’s Industry Days. Wendy Mitchell, film critic and Nordic delegate for the San Sebastián International Film Festival, moderated the panel made up of a group of Icelandic industry experts.

Mitchell began by prefacing the conversation with her own perspective, expressing concern for what she had been seeing: “I was quite alarmed that there were no Icelandic works in progress at the Göteborg [Film Festival], for the first time in about 20 years.” And she wondered what that means for the future of the industry.

Hrönn Sveinsdóttir, managing director of Bío Paradiś and head of the Association of Icelandic Film Directors, kicked off the conversation by stating her interest in being as direct as possible about her perspective. In her view, the new Icelandic government is not as interested in the film industry as before, leading to a lack of ambition and funding for an industry that should be growing faster than it is. Much of her work consists of lobbying, but the combined associations have achieved little progress.

Despite the ten-year Icelandic film policy announced in autumn 2020, the new government elected in 2024 has yet to allocate funding to it. “It seems like the film industry has become the victim of amateur politics and opportunistic approaches by people who don’t understand how it works,” she lamented.

Sveinbjörn Baldvinsson, of the Association of Icelandic Playwrights and Screenwriters, stated that the lack of support for Icelandic film also has sociocultural implications: “We are also risking our own culture and language.” Based on his own experiences, he has seen that low-budget TV series are “unfathomably popular” because there is a hunger for work in Icelandic, regardless of production scale.

Anton Máni Svansson, of Still Vivid, chairman of the Association of Icelandic Film Producers and the producer of Hlynur Pálmason’s The Love That Remains, dug deeper into the funding dynamics that are, in his view, hindering Iceland’s ability to move beyond being a country for film service production. He explained that the government has instated a financial floor of 350 million Icelandic króna (€2.44 million) for projects to receive the 35% tax rebate in the country.

This thus excludes many smaller-scale projects, especially domestic works: “The tax rebate needs to work better with local projects,” Svansson asserted. “We don’t have any regional funds, and we don’t have any investment funds – we don’t have anything else.” Jóhannes Tryggvasonn, of Icelandic public broadcaster RÚV and a board member of the Icelandic Filmmakers' Association, suggested that this could be solved if the minimum spending amount were simply eliminated for Icelandic films.

Tryggvasonn also identified the loss of talent from the film industry as a major concern, as many move to tourism or other industries in search of a steady job. For example, he pointed out that two out of the five people on the board of the filmmakers’ association also work in the tourism industry to make ends meet. “In the short term, we just need to strengthen our ranks,” he said.

Sveinsdóttir suggested that the industry look to the global success of Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value as an example of how to push forward. “Norway is confident enough to produce films about its own country and its own culture, in its own language,” owing to the compounded years of support from the local industry and its government. But not all is doom and gloom – the group firmly agreed that, just like in Denmark and Norway, the talent and drive are there; now, they just need to be activated.