Johnny King Rides Again: Árni Sveinsson’s Eight-Year Quest To Tell The Tale Of An Icelandic Cowboy

“Who the hell is Johnny King?” The thought flashes through my mind as I squeeze through the jam-packed screening room of Skjaldborgarbíó in Patreksfjörður. It’s probably my third feature film of the day at the Skjaldborg Documentary Film Festival and I’m finding it increasingly difficult to maintain focus. The audience, quick to grab their seats while I waited for popcorn, doesn’t seem as confused by the next film or its protagonist — they’re fully prepared to laugh, cry and empathise, even though, for some of them, the name Johnny King doesn’t mean much.

The film in question, Kúreki Norðursins, sagan af Johnny King (The Cowboy of the North: The Story of Johnny King), will later win the Ljóskastari award, the jury prize of Skjaldborg, before hitting the big screen across the country.

Rolling without a plan

“This movie is kind of a happy accident,” director Árni Sveinsson tells me four months after the film’s May premiere at Skjaldborg. “I didn’t know anything [about Johnny King]. It was just a crazy idea from my friend Andri [Freyr Viðarsson], who appears in the film as the storyteller.”

“This movie is kind of a happy accident.”

Andri is a radio presenter at RÁS2 and was introduced to Johnny King through an interview. “Johnny King was having a concert at some hamburger place and Andri asked if I could go check it out and bring a camera,” Árni explains, recalling the conversation from eight years earlier. “That’s how it started. We didn’t know what we were doing.”

Árni brought his camera to the burger joint and filming began without any clear direction. Initially, Árni and Andri weren’t even intending to make a movie — or at least they didn’t realise that’s what was happening. But after meeting Johnny a few times, the story was growing bigger and bigger. “Four years ago, around Covid times, we decided that we should take it all the way,” says Árni.

Johnny King (né Jón Oddi Víkingsson) is a country singer from Húsavík who first gained attention in the 1980s. His rise to fame came after Friðrik Þór Friðriksson’s film Kúrekar norðursins (Cowboys of the North) featuring Iceland’s only cowboy festival in Skagaströnd. Despite a few short-lived attempts to return to the stage in the 90s and early 2000s, Johnny King’s career never managed to reach the same level of prominence.

According to Árni, Johnny was initially flattered by the renewed attention. “As time went on and we kept visiting him, he, of course, was asking us, ‘What are you guys doing? When is this goin to end? Can we finish this now?’” Árni laughs.

The filmmakers explained to Johnny that they wanted to take his story further and that a full-length documentary would be the way to go. But, of course, that meant they needed time and money. For a while, they struggled to advance the project without funding, mostly shooting on weekends while juggling other jobs. Two years ago, “everything clicked together,” as Árni puts it, and the project finally secured funding from the Icelandic Film Centre and RÚV.

A human story

The documentary is shot in a way that makes you care about Johnny King from the very first minutes. I could see people seated around me at Skjaldborg were all rooting for him, caring about him, worrying about him. Árni makes it clear, “This movie is not about country music. It’s just a story about a guy who has a past. He’s trying to deal with his past and he’s trying to keep going. It’s about perseverance, because even through all his trials, he never gives up, he keeps going. It’s a human story, a human interest story.”

“You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll get afraid, you’ll get happy. You don’t need to like country music. You don’t need to know who Johnny King is.“

The story unfolds as Johnny’s life takes a few unexpected turns and contains some deeply intimate revelations. I ask Árni how the crew approached these sensitive topics, “I don’t want to say too much, but we found out straight from the beginning that there was something that he wanted to get out because he hadn’t really talked to anybody about this. We felt that he wanted to get something off his chest,” says Árni. “This was not something that we were hinging all our investment on, but it was a very big part of the story. We knew that we had to try to handle it as best as we could.”

Slowly, the idea that at first seemed to be going nowhere developed into a project with a roadmap. In the span of eight years, the project had its ups and downs. Shooting was first slowed down during Covid and then resumed. Many things changed during that time, including Johnny’s health, which started to deteriorate.

“When you shoot over a long time like this, it can be hard to keep on track,” Árni admits. Taking care of shooting material that piled up over eight years, was a practical challenge. “We lost one day of shooting due to a mix up with transfers because of very serious personal things that happened.” He pauses. “My father died during the making of this film. And the strange thing is that he died the same day that Johnny had his first heart attack.”

That was the first of multiple heart attacks, turning Johnny’s health into a serious question about whether filming could continue. “At some point, we were just afraid that he would die on set,” Árni admits.

Capturing stories

Following the film’s premiere, Johnny King is enjoying his renewed attention. People are coming up to him in Selfoss, where he now lives, to request photos. His albums are streaming on Spotify, getting more and more listens every day. Rumour has it, he might even return to the stage. As for Árni, he already has attention spread across at least three other films.

Having worked extensively in the film, TV, and music video industry for the past 20 years, Kúreki Norðursins is Árni’s fifth feature-length documentary.

“Actually, we were on the cover of the Grapevine in July 2010 after our film Backyard won at Skjaldborg. It was quite fun and very good, but I think we got the cover a little bit too early because when the film came out in September, nobody in Iceland knew about it,” he laughs. “However, everybody in the world knew about it because it was screened at over 50 festivals. We travelled a lot for almost two years with that one. It’s about kids in the neighbourhood — you know, the FM Belfast kids who decided to have a concert in their backyard with all their friends — great bands like múm, Hjaltalín, Retro Stefson and Sin Fang Bous.”

With a portfolio of projects touching on unconventional ideas or involving family members, what really inspires Árni? “You’re just trying to tell a story,” Árni shrugs. “And usually these stories come to you. In my experience, the ones that I’ve been trying to chase, they usually don’t work out.”

“Every good story needs at least one good character. You could have more, but one is usually the essence of every story,” he says, making it clear that Johnny King is that character.

“You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll get afraid, you’ll get happy. You don’t need to like country music. You don’t need to know who Johnny King is. You don’t need to know anything about this world you’re entering, it will all come to light and you’ll have a good time.” He pauses and adds with a smile, “that’s what people are telling me, at least.”

Kúreki Norðursins is screening at Bíó Paradís. Check show times and buy your tickets at bioparadis.is.