Author: Mark Asch
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Vík Town Guide: Fish Burgers, Black Sands & Scratchy Magic
by Mark Asch
Vík í Mýrdal, the southernmost town in Iceland, is a two-and-a-half or three-and-a-half hours’ drive from Reykjavík, depending on how…
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Siglufjörður Town Guide: Hikes, Herring And Hot Pots
by Mark Asch
In the international TV hit ‘Trapped’, Siglufjörður is a place of dismembered corpses and human trafficking; dark secrets and guilty…
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Far North: An Eyjafjörður Itinerary
by Mark Asch
The greatest luxury in Icelandic travel: turning off the Ring Road, pausing that inexorable vacation countdown timer, and burning one…
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The Silver Of The Sea: Siglufjörður’s Living Dioramas
by Mark Asch
A herring might not be suitable for cutting down the mightiest tree in the forest, but don’t underestimate its power:…
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The Next ‘Case’: Icelandic TV Keeps The Scandi-Noir Hits Coming
by Mark Asch
The second series of Icelandic courtroom drama ‘Réttur’ ended in 2010, with quite a cliffhanger: a lawyer is on a…
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Hold My Beer: Brews, Bros, Beards and Business at the Icelandic Beer Festival
by Mark Asch
“Well… we’re not losing money by coming here,” an ultra-friendly Australian craft brewer tells me above the din at the…
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One From The Heart: An Interview With Heartstone’s Director
by Mark Asch
Consider this dilemma: You’re thirteen. You’re offered a starring role in a movie. But, you have to spend much of…
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The Saga of Icelandic Cinema: ‘Cold Fever’
by Mark Asch
In 1989, Jim Jarmusch was unable to attend the Reykjavík Film Festival screenings of ‘Mystery Train’. In his stead, he…
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The Hardest Day Of The Year: Baltasar Kormákur’s ‘101 Reykjavík’
by Mark Asch
“Christmas—the hardest day of the year.” Hlýnur (Hilmir Snær Guðnason) is dreading the traditional Icelandic Christmas dinner, rendered in Baltasar…
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Best When Fresh: Erlingur Thoroddsen Brings Horror To Iceland
by Mark Asch
The first movie the filmmaker Erlingur Thoroddsen remembers seeing is the 1989 Tim Burton/Michael Keaton ‘Batman’, at multiplex in the…
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Baltasar’s Take on Taken: ‘The Oath’
by Mark Asch
‘The Oath’ is something of a palette-cleanser for director and star Baltasar Kormákur, back in his own backyard after a…
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RIFF Guide: What To See If You’re Into…
by Mark Asch
The RIFF audience has a lot of decisions to make with a program than spans eleven days and screens over…
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Last Splash: Didda Speaks About Sólveig Anspach
by Mark Asch
Didda Jónsdóttir, who has played a frizzy-haired, pot-smoking hippie in four films by Solveig Anspach, remembers the first time she…
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The Saga Of Icelandic Cinema: ‘Country Wedding’
by Mark Asch
“It’s a film about two families that are forced to spend time together,” ‘Country Wedding’ director Valdís Óskarsdóttir explained to…
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The Saga Of Icelandic Cinema: ‘Nói the Albino’
by Mark Asch
Probably the most Icelandic moment in ‘Nói albínói’—and this is a very Icelandic movie, about Malt Extract, carrot cake, winter,…
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The Saga of Icelandic Cinema: ‘Sódóma Reykjavík’
by Mark Asch
That this boring fishing town could be any kind of Sin City is very much the joke. “Ó borg mín…
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The Saga Of Icelandic Cinema: ‘Stella í Orlofi’
by Mark Asch
‘Stella í Orlofi’ (“Stella on Holiday”) is known in English as ‘The Icelandic Shock Station’, though referring to the 1986…
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The Saga Of Icelandic Cinema: ‘Rokk í Reykjavík’
by Mark Asch
A legendary document of 101 cool in the pre-Inspired by Iceland era, rockumentary ‘Rokk í Reykjavík’ (1982) captures the ascendancy…
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The Saga of Icelandic Cinema: ‘Land and Sons’
by Mark Asch
There had been Icelandic movies before the 1980 release ‘Land and Sons’, but in the Saga of Icelandic Cinema they’d…
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‘Keep Frozen’ : Tote That Barge! Lift That Bale!
by Mark Asch
There are “oceans” of albums out there, says the crane operator—more music than he could ever listen to in his…
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Written In The Stars: ‘O, Brazen Age’ at Bíó Paradís
by Mark Asch
“Letting nostalgia wash over me—I find this extremely satisfying and also heartbreaking at the same time,” says Canadian writer-director Alexander…
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2015: The Year The Icelandic Indie Film Community Awakened Some More, Potentially,
by Mark Asch
Ísland, bezt í heimi! The biggest film of 2015—nay, the biggest film of ALL TIME (*projected)—was Icelandic, or anyway a…
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Deconstructing The Three Dogateers: Paw-Teur Theory
by Mark Asch
No cinematic genre testifies more urgently to the realities of contemporary American family life than the direct-to-video talking-pet movie. A…
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The Fate Of Flateyri, On Film, At Bíó Paradís
by Mark Asch
“The town is dying,” a then-24-year-old woman working at the Flateyri gas station told a Grapevine reporter, back in 2006….
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MEET THE FILMMAKERS OF THE FUTURE: THEY’RE ALL GIRLS
by Mark Asch
Among the films making their world premiere at this year’s Reykjavík International Film Festival are eleven five-minute shorts, made by…