Author: Mark Asch
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…
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…
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…
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:…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
‘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…
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…
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…
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…
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….
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…