In the Media
RIFF has become one of the cornerstones of international film festivals. People come to Iceland in order to experience the unique landscapes and artistic visions that have inspired so many artists over the years. In addition to the unique venue people are given the opportunity to meet great artists and professionals from the film industry.
With every year RIFF becomes more visible in the Icelandic and foreign press and every year we welcome media people from all over the world.
A lot has been written about RIFF in the press. Here are some of the highlights.
Foreign Press
2022:
Rossy de Palma Receives a Career Award in Reykjavik
Lola Quivoron's 'Rodeo' Takes Top Honors at Reykjavík International Film Festival
Lola Quivoron's 'Rodeo' Takes Top Honors at Reykjavík International Film Festival
Lola Quivoron's 'Rodeo' wins Golden Puffin at Reykjavik Film Festival
The Reykjavik International Film Festival points to growing success in Icelandic cinema
REPORT: Works in Progress @ Reykjavík 2022
In Reykjavík, changing the world means changing minds
Lola Quivoron's Rodeo roars to victory at Reykjavík
Uli Decker • Director of Anima – My Father's Dresses
Advice
Foco: Reykjavík International Film Festival. From September 29 to October 9
Reykjavík International Film Festival
2021:
Eight films vying for the Golden Puffin at Reykjavik
2020:
Film International gives RIFF 2020 a good review despite the circumstances.
2018: Brooklyn Rail
For its 2018 edition, the Reykjavík International Film Festival presented almost 100 feature films, nearly as many shorts, and enough extra-cinematic activities to make one feel guilty for not spending more time in the dark of the theater. Now in its fifteenth year, RIFF continues a tradition of spotlighting young filmmakers while paying tribute to past and present masters. Honorees this past year included Lithuanian iconoclast Jonas Mekas, subject of both a solo gallery exhibition and a generous retrospective of his groundbreaking diary films.
2018: Nordic Film and TV Fund
Woman at war premiered during RIFF and has gone on to win many prizes internationally.
2017: IndieWire
"I think all my early films were more about ideas," Aronofsky said at the Reykjavik Film Festival late last year. When it came to 'Noah,' there was this clear environmental statement in the original gospel, which was interesting to push forward. My latest project probably has similar political intentions behind it, but first and foremost responsibility as a narrative filmmaker is making something that is emotional and can connect with an audience.”
2017: Paste Magazine
RIFF is creatively and expertly programmed by a multinational group that consists of festival founder and director Hrönn Marinósdóttir (Iceland), main programmer Giorgio Gosetti (Italy), documentary programmer Gabor Pertic (Canada) and shorts programmer Ana Catalá (Spain). It's also one of the smoothest running festivals I've ever attended, and besides Gosetti and Pertic, is entirely run by women. Furthermore, six of the nine films that won awards or honorable mentions where directed or co-directed by women. (Perhaps the tide is turning. Given the news of the past few weeks, one can only hope.)
2017 Screen International
Chloe Zhao's The Rider has taken home the top prize, the Golden Puffin, at this year's Reykjavik International Film Festival, which wrapped on Sunday (October 8). The film premiered at this year's Cannes Film Festival in Directors' Fortnight.
2017: The New European
Founded relatively recently — in 2004 — it's not just that the Reykjavik festival is itself a new contender. In order to mark itself out from the Cannes and Berlins of the world, its organizers decided that its big prize (the Golden Puffin) could only ever go to directors bringing their first or second movies. Which has made this chilly Icelandic event a target for hot new talent the world over. "Our aim," festival director Hrönn Marinósdóttir told The Guardian in 2011, "is to present the new generation of directors."
2016: IndieWire
Iceland might seem like an ideal setting for a Darren Aronofsky movie — it's where he shot "Noah," after all — but that's not why he came to the country this month. Instead, he was in town to receive the Creative Excellence award from the Reykjavík Film Festival. The award was presented at Bessastaðir, the presidential residency where the newly elected Guðni Th. Jóhannesson resides. But before the Golden Puffin was presented, the writer, poet and environmental activist Andri Snær Magnason delivered a short speech in Aronofsky's honor.
2016: Screen Daily
An article about Godless which won the Golden Puffin at RIFF.
Bulgarian-Danish-French drama previously won festival awards in Locarno and Sarajevo.
2015: Cinema Scandinavia:
Article about Danish films that were in focus at RIFF in 2015.
2014: Episode
Finnish newspaper talks about the festival. The article is written in Finnish.
2014: Huffington Post
RIFF's "cultural strategy" is to display gutsy indie filmmakers who reflect the "young, innovative and authentic" feeling of Reykjavik itself. The uncompromising Mr. Leigh not only personifies that spirit in his very mien, but, as a late night conversation with Leigh groupies confirmed, he's also an inspiration to young filmmakers seeking to follow in his fiercely original footsteps.
2014: Variety
Until such time as someone establishes a chance to watch movies on the moon, the Reykjavik Intl. Film Festival looks to be the next best thing. Although the Icelandic capital boasts all the amenities of a modern European city, the surrounding countryside — renowned for its spectacular emerald green cliffs, jet-black volcanic soil and massive shelves of ice — suggests the surface of another planet.
2014: Today's News
Mårten Blomkvist: Islands science fiction landscape charms Hollywood
2013: Screen daily
Screen Daily reflects on the program at RIFF 2013.
Lukas Moodysson, Laurent Cantet and James Gray to receive honorary awards; focus on Greece and environmental docs.
2012: Björk at RIFF – IndieWire
Watch Bjork's Surprise Appearance at the Reykjavik Film Festival Awards Ceremony
2011: Guardian
Iceland's annual celebration of young film-makers is local and low-key – but attracts some of the world's hottest names
2011: Article in NY Times about Volcano and RIFF
Iceland is a country of upheavals, natural and artificial, literal and figurative, so it should be no surprise that the featured Icelandic selection at the eighth annual Reykjavik International Film Festival is "Volcano," directed by Runar Runarsson, which opens with spectacular scenes of the Eldfell volcano chewing the bones of a small island town in 1973.
2011: Politiken
About every tenth Icelander has been there and seen one or more films during the Reykjavik International Film Festival, two films in particular have attracted attention: The 34-year-old Danish-Icelandic film director Runár Runársson debuted with his first feature film, 'Vulkan', and the 61-year-old Danish documentary director Ulla Boje Rasmussen presented his controversial portrait of the Icelandic business clan Thor family, 'Thor's Saga', to the Icelandic home audience.
2011: NEWMAG
Article in Morgunblaðið about an article in New York Magazine.
David Edelstein from the prestigious New York Magazine writes a long and laudatory review of RIFF in the latest issue of the magazine. The article is hilarious, as Edelstein says he's glad he didn't meet Jim Jarmusch, who he called his latest film probably "the most boring ever made."
2010 : Indie Wire
It's clear because of the audience. The festival, despite a crippling financial crisis that affected its community, saw a ten percent increase in admissions in 2010, with its total just over 25,000. That's essentially twenty percent of Reykjavik's population, and over eight percent of Iceland's total population.
2009:Screen Daily
Milos Forman receives Lifetime Achievement Award; other winners include Together from Norway and The Girl from Sweden.
2009: Film comment
For six years now, Reykjavik, Iceland's capital and cultural center, has hosted a medium-scale (in international, not local terms) film festival. Despite the crippling economic crisis that hit last September, this year's edition yielded more films (over 100 features) and its largest audiences to date
Icelandic Press
2021:
Return of the RIFF: The Reykjavik film festival bounces back.
Yes-People receives an Oscar nomination. Interview with Gísla Darra, the writer, and director of the short film. The film won the award for RIFF's best Icelandic short film in 2020.
2020:
RIFF kicks off with "Bipolar Musical documentary with elephants."
"For the first time, you can take part in one of Iceland's biggest and most diverse cultural events from the comfort of your home."
Reykjavik International Film Festival goes ahead in September
RIFF & Chill: The Reykjavík International Film Festival Goes Digital – Hybrid
RIFF will be online: "People need entertainment."
This is the first time we are putting the films online, so they are all accessible on riff.is. We are using a very cool management system, a quality system, to show the films. Ticket prices are very low. And in this way we reach all the people of the country and we are very proud to be able to offer the RIFF films to all those who live abroad, and not least to those who do not have access to their homes, are in hospital, in prison or whatever.
Hrönn Marinósdóttir talks about RIFF in covid time and RIFF's Cinema bus.
"There needs to be some entertainment, there needs to be culture. People need to be able to lift themselves up," says Hrönn Marinósdóttir, RIFF's managing director, as the festival begins shortly despite the challenging circumstances in society. A special movie truck will tour the country on behalf of the festival, showing specially selected films to preschool children in the mornings, while in the evenings a drive-in movie will be projected onto the walls at its stops."
"Always watching movies" Frédéric Boyer talks about his role in RIFF's program committee.
Frédéric Boyer chairs the RIFF program committee, the Reykjavík International Film Festival, and is responsible for the competition category The Wise, dedicated to new and promising directors whose first or second film is screened in the category. One of the films won the festival's top prize, the Golden Puffin. Boyer is also the artistic director of the Tribeca Film Festival in New York and the Les Arcs Film Festival in France. He has also served as the chief program director of the Directors' Fortnight section of the Cannes Film Festival.
Girls movie!
Many of the country's most experienced screenwriters and filmmakers are mentoring the girls, and the project is part of addressing the gender imbalance that exists in filmmaking in Iceland, according to the announcement. Many interacting factors make it less likely for girls to try their hand at the industry and make their voices heard, it says, and the course aims to give girls the space to develop their talents.
