Author: Valur Gunnarsson
What Can The Recent British Elections Teach Us About Icelandic Politics?
Two things of note happened in the United Kingdom on May 7. One of them, as you may have heard,…
Film Review: A Dark Horse With A Good Heart – ‘Fúsi’ (“Virgin Mountain”)
Icelandic cinema seems to be doing rather well with upwards of twelve premieres expected this year. For those who worried…
Does the West Pass the Test? A Great New German Film Re-examines The Cold War In The Shadow Of Snowden
The current spate of movies set in East Germany started as far back as 2003 with the comedy Good Bye,…
Dark Valley: A Sauerkraut Western Renounces Religion
Christoph Waltz in Django Unchained was not the first German (or Austrian) to discover the Wild West. In the late…
A Legend Attempts Real Life: Handball Hero Ólafur Stefánsson Portrayed In New Doc
One of the many, many things Icelanders like to brag about to foreigners are the merits of our handball teams….
Critics On A Plane And Other Tales of Mayhem and Murder: Wild Tales Is Great
One of the leftovers of the smörgåsbord that was the Stockfish Film Festival is Wild Tales, still being screened at…
We Met The Men Responsible For The Grumpiest Finn
Grumpy old men seem to be all the rage in the Nordics these days. The Swedes have their 100-year-old who…
Baby Steps To Freedom: Palestinian Filmmaker Najwa Najjar And The Power Of Cinema
“These are the darkest times for Palestine and I think it may get worse.” Filmmaker Najwa Najjar, rather like her…
A Very Good Idea And A Little Luck: An Interview With Norwegian Director Bent Hamer
Can Norwegians be funny? This question was first addressed in the 1968 film The Man Who Couldn’t Laugh, which actually…
Norway After Breivik: Eskil Vogt And His Movie Blind
The Swedes and the Danes have usually taken turns winning the Nordic Council film awards, that is, until Iceland’s Benedikt…
It Only Takes A Little Discrimination To Make A Revolutionary
An interview with French-Algerian director Rachid BoucharebEveryone dreams of making a movie that will change the world, but one of…
Does the West Pass the Test? A Great New German Film Re-examines The Cold War In The Shadow Of Snowden
The current spate of movies set in East Germany started as far back as 2003 with the comedy Good Bye,…
The Dogs D’Amour
What’s Good At The French Film Festival? Whether by accident or design, each year’s French Film Festival seems to be…
The Puffinisation Of A Country: Tourism Today
When Grapevine started in 2003, we were in the midst of what at the time seemed like a considerable tourism…
Iceland On The Brain: 1200 Years Of Tourism
Everyone knows that Ingólfur Arnarson (that chap with the spear thing on the hill overlooking the city centre) was Iceland’s…
The Liverpool Of The North
The Icelandic museum of rock ’n’ roll opens in Kef CityAccording to legend, it was the proximity to the US…
Love In The Land Of The Midnight Sun
Or: Why there is no dating culture in IcelandIt’s nearing four o‘clock and the boys at the bar are tearing…
Icelandic Punkers Grow Old Gracefully
Punk rock faced the same problem everywhere. Whereas rock music grew up and became the soundtrack of Western capitalism, punkers…
Icelandic Rock and Roll in the Land of Lordi
A little bit like Liverpool in the ’60s, Reykjavík is a small coastal town that managed to turn local music…
Why Is There No Dating In Iceland?
“So how did you meet your boyfriend,” one of the girls asked. “At Prikið,” one answered. “At Vegamót,” another said….
1993: Last March Of The Supergroups
The year 1993 might not seem like a pivotal time in popular music, but in retrospect, a lot of narratives…
Hollywood Dreams Come True
Baltasar Kormákur just could be to Icelandic film what Björk is to Icelandic music. In the same way that Björk…
Backyard Babies
August is your last chance to see the cavalcade of classic Icelandic films that have been playing at Bíó Paradís…
Our New Government: Uniting The Left?
At least our new government is wasting no time. You have to give them that. First, destroy public radio and…
The Return Of Iceland’s Bell
Ask Icelanders about the bad old times under Danish rule and they will probably tell you about how the Danes…