Impact Talks
Impact Talks are deep dives into the social and environmental issues portrayed in A Different Tomorrow. Join the directors and other speakers after the screenings in an attempt to further understand the dynamics at play and the role of film as a tool for social change! The talks take place after the screenings of the films and last approximately 45 minutes.
A Marble Travelogue
October 4 | 17:00 | Háskólabió
With a light touch and wry humor, the Chinese-Dutch documentary A Marble Travelogue portrays a chain that runs from capital to manufacturing, wholesale, retail, and consumer. The film makes complex connections and highlights the European aspirations of the Chinese middle class in an unobtrusive but visually seductive style.
Moderated by: Cristian Cerutti
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Sean Shen Wang is a Hui (a Muslim ethnic minority) Chinese filmmaker born in 1991. He is currently studying in University of the Arts Utrecht for MA of Fine Arts. His debut documentary Lady of the Harbour is nominated the Best Dutch Film Award at IDFA 2017 and is selected at One World Prague and EIDF etc. His second feature-length documentary A Marble Travelogue is nominated the Best Dutch Film Award at IDFA 2021.It’s also selected at Melbourne IFF, Visions du Reel, CPHOX, Hotdocs, Thessaloniki, DMZ and Art of the Real Lincoln Center etc.
Guðbjörg Ríkey Th. Hauksdóttir is a PhD student at the University of Iceland, studying China-Russia Arctic Relations. She is a former Program Manager at the Centre for Arctic Studies and has worked as a journalist and a radio show host. Guðbjörg holds a B.A. degree in Chinese Studies from the University of Iceland and an M.A. degree in International Relations from the same university. She taught at University of Iceland, including international relations theories, security studies, as well as courses about Chinese society and politics. Her main research interests include Arctic politics and security, foreign policy, small state security and Chinese foreign policy.
A Taste of Whale
October 4 | 19:15 | Háskólabió
The fjord’s water, surrounded by stunning green mountains, is turning blood red. It is the “Grind” season again — Faroe Islanders’ ritual slaughter of pilot whales. Two proud Faroese whalers are on one side, two young and passionate Sea Shepherd activists on the other. A Taste of Whale invites you to see past preconceived positions and question what meat-eating is truly about.
Moderated by: Donal Boyd
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Sigurjón Baldur Hafsteinsson is professor at the University of Iceland. He is former director of the Icelandic National Film Archive and researched indigenous film making in Canada. He is the author of the book Unmasking Deep Democracy: An Anthropology of Indigenous Media in Canada (2013) and co-editor with Marian Bredin of Indigenous Screen Cultures in Canada (2010).
Helga Vala Helgadóttir has been a member of the Parliament since 2017 for the Social Democratic Alliance and is the Chairman of the Parliamentary Party. Before attending the Parliament, she was an Attorney and a Partner of Valva, Law firm, was a journalist and last but not least an Actress and a Director. In her work as a Parliamentarian and an Attorney she has put her main focus on Human rights, equality, environmental issues and that Iceland legalizes the new Constitution.
Sigursteinn Masson is a journalist by profession who has most part this century represented the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) in Iceland and also in Norway. Also leading human welfare NGO´s in Iceland, making TV documentary films, original crime and travel series for Storytel and he is a writer of four books. From 2003 Sigursteinn led IFAW´s campaign in Iceland against whale hunting.
Eternal Spring
October 5 | 18:00 | Háskólabió
A Reykjavik Grapevine Pick!
When members of Falun Gong hack China’s state TV to expose brutal repression – lives are changed forever. Celebrated comic book artist Daxiong tells a story of the resilience of those fighting for religious freedom.
Moderated by: Josie Gaitens (culture editor Reykjavik Grapevine)
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A Peabody Award-winning filmmaker and four-time Canadian Screen Award nominee, Jason Loftus’ work spans documentary, VR, games, and animation. His feature directorial debut, the documentary Ask No Questions, premiered at Slamdance in 2020. His follow-up film, Eternal Spring (長春), premiered in March 2022 Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, winning both the “Peter Wintonick” Fischer Audience Award and the Greek Parliament’s Human Values Award. It then won both major audience prizes at Hot Docs and a dozen festival prizes through spring 2022. In August, Eternal Spring (長春) was named Canada’s entry for the Best International Film at the 2023 Oscars—the first animation, documentary, and Mandarin-language film to receive this honour.
Margrét Steinarsdóttir is a lawyer and the director for the Icelandic Human Rights Centre. Before that Margrét was the director for the Intercultural Centre in Iceland, an information and counseling centre for immigrants. Her areas of expertise are gender equality, gender-based violence, trafficking in human beings, immigrant and asylum issues, discrimination, hate speech and data protection.
Benjamin Julian is a freelance writer with a focus on migration and policing. In 2014-16, he wrote and worked on refugee aid in Iceland, Greece and Turkey, reporting on the closing off of migration through the Eastern Mediterranean route and on refugees’ ongoing travels through Europe. He has also written about Icelandic policing and done a brief participatory study of arrests. Benjamin is a former union organizer, and currently lives in peaceful coexistence in Reykjavik.
We, Students!
October 5 | 20:45 | Háskólabió
The filmmaker turns the camera on himself and his friends, capturing their everyday life as students of Bangui University. At once clear-eyed and poetic, they share their thoughts about their future in the Central African Republic.
Moderated by: Þórunn Lárusdóttir
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Þóra Jóhannsdóttir is the current president of Hugrún geðfræðslufélag, an organization made up of volunteers whose goal is to educate young people on mental health and mental disorders as well as available resources. She first began volunteering for Hugrún in the year 2020 while she was an undergraduate student in psychology at the University of Iceland. The following year she became a board member where she managed the organization’s social media. In addition, Þóra has attended meetings in the National Youth Council of Iceland and started a podcast called Hugvarpið with the intention of making information about mental health and mental disorders more accessible. She is deeply passionate about spreading awareness and continuing to remove the stigma around mental health and mental disorders.
Katrín Sverrisdóttir is a clinical psychologist and a member of a psychological team that offers psychological services for the students at the University of Iceland. At the Psychological services we provide short-term, individual therapy sessions in Icelandic, English, Danish, and German. We offer, on regular basis, psychoeducation in groups regarding low self-esteem and CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy).
ONLINE | Henry Alexander Henrysson received his PhD from the University of Reading (UK) in 2007. He taught philosophy at the University of Iceland between 2008 and 2019 but is currently working as a consultant and advisor in the field of applied ethics. In recent years he has been a member of the National Bioethics Committee, The University of Iceland Ethics Committee, The University of Iceland Research Ethics Committee, the Advisory board for the registration of secular life stance and religious organisations in Iceland, the National Animal Welfare Review Board, The Suitability Assessment Advisory Committee for the Icelandic Financial Supervisory Authority, the board of the Icelandic Association of non-fiction writers and the board of the Centre for Ethics, University of Iceland. He is Iceland’s representative of the Council of Europe’s Pan-European Platform on Ethics, Transparency and Integrity in Education (ETINED). In addition to university lecturing, Henry has given numerous talks for institutions and companies on ethical decision making. He has published books and scholarly articles on philosophy as well as op-ed articles in the Icelandic media on current affairs.
Into the Ice
October 6 | 17:00 | Háskólabió
A grand, cinematic adventure on the Greenland ice sheet with three leading scientists in search of what the ice can tell us about our climate, our past and possible future.
Moderated by: Donal Boyd
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Guðfinna Aðalgeirsdóttir is professor of Glaciology at the Institute of Earth Sciences, University of Iceland. Her research focuses on the interaction of climate and glaciers/ice sheets by monitoring and modelling the response of glaciers and ice caps to climate change in the past, present and future. She studied geophysics and glaciology at University of Iceland, University of Alaska in Fairbanks and ETH in Zürich, Switzerland and has done field work in Iceland, Alaska, Switzerland, Greenland and two field seasons in Antarctica. Guðfinna is one of the lead authors of the WG1 6th assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC AR6) contributing to Chapter 9: Ocean, cryosphere and sea level change.
Mads K. Mikkelsen is Head of Programme at CPHOX – Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival which he began programming in 2009. Besides the festival, he runs various parallel screening series and cinema clubs, teaches film history at the Danish Film School, and is a frequent contributor to local and international magazines and publications about film. In 2018, he published his first book about cinema. At the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, he received an award for his work as a programmer from Festival de Cannes – Marché du film and Screen International.
Thorgerdur María Þorbjarnardóttir was chair of The Icelandic Youth Environmentalist Association and is now on the board of Landvernd, the Icelandic Environmental Association. She is raised in Egilstaðir and from a young age she has been passionate about nature and natural science. She studied geology at the University of Iceland and has a MPhil in Conservation Leadership from the University of Cambridge. In her academic work she has acquired knowledge about nature and then combined it with her interest in communication and governance to advocate for nature. In primary school she experienced the construction of the biggest hydro power plant in Europe close to her hometown in Kárahnjúkar. Now she works and travels through the eastern highlands of Iceland during summers and passes the damn and reservoir frequently. She hopes she will never again have to see such destruction. Her aim is to do as much as she can to protect biological and geological diversity.
Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson served as President of Iceland for twenty years, 1996-2016; elected five times in nationwide elections. Previously, he was Minister of Finance, Member of Parliament, Member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and the first Professor of Political Science at the University of Iceland. In the 1980s and early 1990s, he was the President of Parliamentarians for Global Action, an international organization of legislators. He now serves as Chairman of the Arctic Circle, which he founded in 2013 with various Arctic partners. The Arctic Circle Assembly held in Iceland every October has become the largest annual international gathering on the Arctic, attended by more than 2000 participants from 60 countries. The Arctic Circle also organizes specialized Forums in other countries; so far, in Asia, Europe, and North America. For decades, President Grímsson has been an active participant in the global climate dialogue and during his Presidency and in recent years initiated and promoted clean energy projects in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, the United States, and the Americas; especially using Icelandic achievements and technologies as a model. Cooperation with Sinopec has led to the largest geothermal projects in the world, building clean energy urban heating systems in a multitude of Chinese cities. He was the Chairman of a commission established by IRENA on the new geopolitics emerging from global renewable energy transformation. Grímsson served on the Advisory Board of Sustainable Energy for All, created by the United Nations and the World Bank. In addition to devoting his post-presidential efforts to the three areas of climate, the Arctic and clean energy, Grímsson is also involved in international cooperation on the oceans and the evolution of sustainable use of marine resources. President Grímsson has received many international awards, including the Nehru Award for International Understanding, presented to him by the President of India.
The Territory
October 6 | 19:30 | Háskólabió
When a network of Brazilian farmers seizes a protected area of the Amazon rainforest, a young Indigenous leader and his mentor must fight back in defence of the land and an uncontacted group living deep within the forest.
Moderated by: Donald Boyd
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ONLINE | Will N. Miller is a documentary filmmaker and co-founder of Documist, a production company based in New York City and Toronto. His work focuses on environmental conflict, migration and human rights. He has worked in over 30 countries and speaks English and Spanish fluently, as well as Portuguese and French conversationally. THE TERRITORY is the first feature film Miller has produced. Before that, he worked primarily on short films and digital features, garnering several awards as well as Emmy® and Canadian Screen Awards nominations. His work has been published by The New York Times, The Guardian, The Economist, CNN, NBC and BBC. From 2017 through 2019, he worked at Human Rights Watch, where he produced over 100 videos reaching millions of viewers online and broadcast by dozens of news outlets around the world. Miller is dedicated to teaching and sharing the craft of documentary. He has worked on a range of participatory multimedia projects in the U.S., Canada, Kenya, Haiti, the Philippines and Brazil, from photography projects with kids to evidentiary video techniques for human rights defenders to masterclasses for aspiring cinematographers. He taught part-time at the East African Film Academy as well as the Aga Khan Graduate School of Media and Communications and has given dozens of workshops around the world. Miller studied environmental sciences at McGill University. His research focused on historical settlement patterns in the Napo River Valley in the Peruvian Amazon as well as land loss and displacement of the Emberá Indigenous community by the Alto Bayano hydroelectric dam in Panama
Amy Shepherd is the COO of Think-Film and is a highly experienced creative strategist with an extensive professional background in international law, politics and social justice advocacy. A graduate of Cambridge University and Utrecht University, she trained first as a barrister and later worked for a number of international NGOs before finding a home for her analytical and creative talents in film impact. Amy’s film impact credits include The Territory (National Geographic 2022), Navalny (CNN Films 2022), The Scars of Ali Boulala (Sisyfos Film 2021) and iHuman (UpNorth 2019).
Orri Páll Jóhannsson is a newly elected member of Parliament since 2021. Orri Páll is Chair of the Left-Green Movement’s parliamentary group, a member of the Environment and Communications Committee, the Future Committee, and a member of the Icelandic delegation to the Nordic Council. Before attending the Parliament, he was a political advisor to the Minister for the Environment and Natural resources, a park manager at Vatnajökull National Park, a ranger in various nature reserves in Iceland and a national operator for the Eco-Schools programme. In his work Orri Páll emphasizes on sustainable development, nature conservation, environmental protection, and the climate crisis.
Girl Gang
October 7 | 17:30 | Háskólabió
A Reykjavik Grapevine Pick!
A contemporary fairy tale about a 14-year-old influencer from Berlin and her biggest fan. But life as a social media star has a shadow side that the adrenaline, fame and free sneakers can’t make up for.
Moderated by: Josie Gaitens (culture editor Reykjavik Grapevine)
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Susanne Regina Meures is a German/Swiss filmmaker, well known for making films about rebels and pioneers who dare to stand up against systemic political and social repression. She holds a Master in Photography and History of Art from The Courtauld Institute in London. She also holds a Master in Film from Zurich University of the Arts. With RAVING IRAN (2016) her first feature-length documentary, Susanne Regina Meures launched an international festival and box-office success. The film is a portrait about two Iranian Djs who rebel against the regime and escape. The documentary was screened at over 130 film festivals worldwide (including Berlinale, Hot Docs, IDFA…), won numerous awards and became a box office success. In 2020, SAUDI RUNAWAY premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The film documents the escape of a young Saudi woman, using her own cell phone footage. At the European premiere at Berlinale, the film won the Audience Award. National Geographic / Disney Ltd acquired the world rights to the film. SAUDI RUNAWAY was nominated for the European Film Award and won the EUFA 2020. GIRL GANG is Susanne Regina Meures third feature-length documentary, which premiered in competition at CPHox and Hot Docs in 2022 and is now showing at festivals around the globe. The film is an intimate portrait about a 14-year-old influencer and her family and takes us backstage of the claustrophobic social media world.Susanne Regina Meures is a member of the Swiss Film Academy, the German Film Academy and the European Film Academy.
“Hey everyone” or as I always say at the start of my TikTok’s: “Hæ allir”.
My name is Thelma Rut Elíasdóttir and I’m turning 19 years old in November. I grew up in a small town in Iceland, called Seltjarnarnes. I am currently an undergraduate in the department of psychology at Reykjavík University. I started posting on TikTok in June 2021 and grew an audience from there. My content is inspired by my daily life and I decided to use my platform to show people that it’s okay to just be yourself.
Dr. Ingibjorg Eva Thorisdottir is Planet Youth’s Chief Analytics and Advisory Officer and a teacher at Reykjavik University. Her primary research focus is on adolescent mental health, dissemination practices, and upstream prevention.
Kristín Pétursdóttir is an Icelandic actress, born in 1992. She lives in Reykjavík with her family. Her first professional job in acting was the film Jitters (2010) and had at that time played in high school plays and amateur theatre. She entered the Icelandic Academy of the Arts in acting in 2012 and graduated in 2015. During the study she played a role in the family television show People of the Block (2013) and in the national comedy show Áramótaskaupið the year after. She has also been the main voice of Coka Cola in Iceland since 2016 and participated in all kinds of advertising. Her last acting role was in the danish play Mothers which was premiered in february in Iðnó theatre, and was praised by the critics. Kristín also has a big instagram account followed by 14 thousand people, and has used that platform for comedy and advertising.
Black Mambas
October 7 | 20:30 | Háskólabió
In collaboration with the Reykjavik Feminist Film Festival!
“Black Mambas” are the first all-female anti-poaching unit in South Africa assigned to protect the Big Five (Elephants, Rhinos, Lions, Leopards, Buffalo) in the Greater Kruger Park. Chosen by the (mostly white male) conservation committees as a vital marketing tool, the women stand at the crossroads of progress and a colonial past.
Moderated by: Sólrún Freyja Sen (Reykjavik Feminist Film Festival)
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Born in St Petersburg, Russia, Lena Karbe is a Germany-based filmmaker. Having studied film internationally (École normale supérieure, University of Oxford and University of Television and Film in Munich), she founded her own production company KARBE FILM GmbH in 2018 with the focus on documentaries for national and international audiences, based in Munich. The mission of Karbe Film’s documentaries is to foster new perspectives and amplify voices and opinions outside the status quo. She has produced several feature films before starting to write and direct. Documentary series CHINESE DREAM that she co-directed with Tristan Coloma was shown at more than 30 festivals worldwide and was published on ARTE in Spring 2020. BLACK MAMBAS, her feature film debut as a writer/director, premiered at CPHox in Copenhagen in March 2022, where it won the F:ACT Award. BLACK MAMBAS is currently on the festival circuit.
Rósa Erlingsdottir is a political scientist (M.A. from the Free University in Berlin) and works as a senior policy advisor at the Icelandic Prime Minister’s Office. She has, since 2013, worked in three different Ministries on policy-making, gender equality reforms, and human rights issues. Currently, she works at the department for policy coordination on developing policies on the well-being economy and the implementation of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals.
Chaiwe Sól Patiswa Drifudóttir is an activist, artist and educator; but most importantly a woman of color and a mother. She was born in Zambia and adopted by an Icelandic mother. As an Icelandic person of color, she has experienced and dealt with a fair amount of racism, discrimination, and the difficulties of understanding what it means to “be Icelandic”. She developed a thick skin; cultivating survival methods in order to find her footing and voice in the system. Her struggles within society led her to pursue a career in education. She is currently completing a Masters’ in Theatre Education at Hi, with a focus on using theatre as a platform to teach Icelandic as a second or third language. Chaiwe is currently working at Kársneskóli teaching Icelandic as a second language. As a mother to a mixed-raced child, Chaiwe strives to create a better environment for her child. She aims to create footprints in the Icelandic community to make it easier for her son to be Icelandic. “We live in a world where things are happening so fast that we can barely keep up. Let’s not hold on to our old ways. Let’s be open-minded and really understand the world that we live in. Let’s allow ourselves to adjust and let go of ideals that don’t serve us. Education is key- we need to listen, learn, update and reboot our minds. To all the under-dogs: Face your fears, Live your dreams, Never give up, and Be YOU!”
