Iceland Documentary Film Festival Took Place At Akranes

Iceland Documentary Film Festival took place in Akranes last weekend, on June 22-26. The First Lady of Iceland, Eliza Reid, officially opened the festival. Grapevine’s team visited the festival on Saturday and is ready to share some highlights of the festival.

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2022 marked the fourth year of the festival.

According to the organizers: “Our mission is to introduce quality documentaries to both local audiences and visitors from abroad and to connect filmmakers and industry people from all over the world. Akranes is close to Reykjavík but a little off the beaten path and still has that quaint small town feel about it.”

The festival took place in several locations around Akranes, including the local lighthouse Akranesviti, a neighboring warehouse and one of the oldest cinemas in the country—Bíóhöllin.

International shorts

In addition to the official documentary programme, the festival offered a few screenings of short films, including student films and international shorts. The short film that caught our attention was ‘Gangnam Beauty’—a 21-minute documentary about an influencer Oli London who spent years and thousands of dollars for plastic surgeries to look like a member of his favourite K-pop band BTS. The film’s director Yan Tomaszewski has also visited the festival.

Philosophy in primary school

The highlight of Saturday’s evening was the screening of ‘Young Plato’—a movie shot in a boys primary school in Northern Ireland, which became known after its principal Kevin McArevey decided to introduce philosophy class to the kids. “The boys on the screen…they are superstars to me. They are the ones that made ‘Young Plato’,” said Kevin during the Q&A session. Read more about the movie and see the trailer here.

Main Competition award

‘A Night of Knowing Nothing’ directed by Payal Kapadia won the Main Competition award of Iceland Documentary Film Festival. The film tells a story about a university student in India through her letters to an estranged lover.

The Main Competition jury consisted of Christine Camdessus, producer and artistic director of FIPADOC, Hanna Björk Valsdóttir director and producer and Miguel Eek, producer, director and artistic director of Major Docs.

“The Main Competition jury for the 4th edition of IceDocs have unanimously decided to give the award for the best feature documentary to a film that took us on a unique journey mixing personal story with a collective experience,” said the jury members.