The Reykjavík International Film Festival always shines a spotlight on Iceland through its special section, Icelandic Panorama. Each year, the programme features a diverse selection of Icelandic films, including narrative features, documentaries, short films, and full-length productions.
The section can be described as a crossroads where Icelandic and international cinema meet, offering audiences films that, in one way or another, strike a chord with the Icelandic national psyche. The selection consists mostly of Icelandic films, though international films are occasionally included. What they all have in common is that they capture something distinctly Icelandic, while offering a compelling and thought-provoking perspective.
Ég, sundruð (Dissociate Me)
Director: Janaé Rachel Ballot
Encouraged by editor Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, a woman attempts a film about her chaotic past. Without a script, she casts actors, location scouts, relives childhood trauma until she is struck by a car mid-production. In the wreckage of the film’s unraveling, she lets go of the story she thought she had to tell to finally reclaim her life.
Háhitasvæði (Full Steam Ahead)
Directors: Susan Muska, Gréta Ólafsdóttir
Different generations of women give us rare insights into their world and what it takes to survive in the geothermal industry, a male-dominated field. The women share their struggles and successes, and the changes that have taken place in the workplace over the years.
Ef gæfan lofar (If Luck Will Come)
Director: Camille Bildsøe
Under Taliban rule, childhood ends at 14 for Afghan children. As the years count down from 12, Zahra and Zalgai cling fiercely to play, even as silence, duty, and the constraints of adulthood close in around them.
Gamlar glæður (La Belle Année)
Director: Angelica Ruffier
While emptying her childhood home after her estranged father’s death, Angelica recalls a fierce and solitary love she had as a teenager for her history teacher, Miss B. And as her list of duties never seems to diminish, an intense desire grows in Angelica: to meet her again.
Tímans rás (La Pietà)
Directors: Pepe Andreu, Rafa Molés
Over a century ago, Flosi Björnsson and his eight siblings settled beneath Vatnajökull and devoted their lives to the glacier. Returning to the sealed farm of his childhood summers, photographer Ragnar Axelsson awakens Flosi’s voice, while the cracking ice composes a requiem for a vanishing world.
Vegur 75 um Tröllaskarð– Álög Grímu
Director: Árni Gunnarsson
In Hegranes, northern Iceland, people have long believed that construction projects must be approved by hidden forces. In 1978, during a séance, the Icelandic Road Administration made a deal with Gríma, a woman who had lived there some 500 years earlier. In exchange for changing the design of the road over Tröllaskarð, she promised that serious accidents would be avoided. But did Gríma keep her promise? And do the hidden people still have a say?
Ævintýri á hestbaki
Director: Árni Gunnarsson
Ride of a Lifetime follows Þórgunnur Þórarinsdóttir, a young horsewoman from northern Iceland whose life has always revolved around Icelandic horses. Filmed over five years, the documentary follows her journey from an unknown fifteen-year-old rider in rural Skagafjörður to representing Iceland at the 2025 World Championships for Icelandic Horses in Switzerland with her beloved horse, Djarfur frá Flatatungu.
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