Riff Dates (from 24-September-2026 to 04 october 2026)

Girls Filming in the Rural Areas kicked off with great fanfare the third week of January and is the first time the course has been offered to rural communities other than Reykjavík. The Children's Culture Fund generously funded the project so that girls and transgender individuals could be given the opportunity to attend the course in the rural areas. RIFF hopes that the course can become an annual opportunity for local communities, as it is important to give girls and transgender individuals a space to try their hand at filmmaking. Both to increase the chances that girls and transgender individuals will become more prominent in the field later on, which is currently very male-dominated, both in terms of the profession itself and the subjects in television shows and films.

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The girls are busy filming.

It was Reykjanes that rode the wave this spring semester at the Fjörheimar community center in Keflavík and 22 girls came together during school hours for an entire week. Key aspects of filmmaking such as screenwriting, directing, cinematography and editing were taught and the course ended with the submission of a 5-minute short film. The girls could not be heard to say anything other than that they were extremely satisfied with the course. Marzibil Sæmundardóttir, Ninna Pálmadóttir and Anna Sæunn Ólafsdóttir were the ones who saw the lessons, Baltasar Kormákur came to visit as a secret guest and both Hringbraut and Landinn stopped by to film and do some interviews.

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Baltasar Kormákur dropped by as a secret guest and listened to the girls' script ideas and gave them good advice. It will be exciting to see who will be the secret guest next!

 

The "Girls Film" seminar was held for the first time outside of Reykjavík in the third week this year. Six more seminars will follow in the coming weeks closer to spring in other parts of the country. The first town we visited was Reykjanesbær where we got to know 22 amazing young girls and non binary individuals. Our aim is for the seminar to become a regular option for children in the countryside, ideally on an annual basis. It is our hope that these efforts will enrich the female point of view and participation both behind and in front of the camera when it comes to the Icelandic film industry in the future.

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Silence on set. Action!

Fjörheimar, a state of the art youth center in Reykjanesbær, provided us with a base for the seminar the whole week we where there. The girls spent their week, during school time, with us in an intense crash course learning scriptwriting, directing, filming and editing. During this time they all made 5 minute long short films which will be screened at RIFF this fall. Every seminar we get a visit from a secret guest and this time Baltasar Kormákur (Contraband, Trapped, Everest) came to share his experience with the girls.

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Baltasar Kormákur came for a visit as a secret guest. He listened to all the script ideas from the girls and gave good advice.

The following video was filmed at the seminar in Reykjanesbær, January 2022.