Mark Asch
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Deconstructing The Three Dogateers: Paw-Teur Theory
No cinematic genre testifies more urgently to the realities of contemporary American family life than the direct-to-video talking-pet movie. A deceptively homespun transposition of a French literary classic to a middle-class American household, ‘The Three Dogateers’ is an incisive work that fits…
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MEET THE FILMMAKERS OF THE FUTURE: THEY’RE ALL GIRLS
Among the films making their world premiere at this year’s Reykjavík International Film Festival are eleven five-minute shorts, made by eleven groups of 8th and 9th grade girls from eleven different Reykjavík schools. The all-girl “Stelpur filma” (“Girls Filming”) workshop was a…
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Five Takes On The Reykjavík International Film Festival, RIFF
Two of our film guys watched some notable titles at the ongoing Reykjavík International Film Festival, RIFF, for your sake! And then, they wrote short capsule reviews, for your convenience! ‘Democrats’ (Dir. Camilla Nielsson) – Documentaries In 2008, after Robert Mugabe brutally…
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RIFF’S Opening Fairy Tale: Bringing Reykjavík Up To Speed
Almost exactly fifteen minutes into the 2015 Reykjavík International Film Festival, Salma Hayek will eat a sea monster’s heart. The 12th annual RIFF opens on September 24 with ‘Tale Of Tales’, from the Italian director Matteo Garrone, a loose adaptation of three…
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Albatross: New Look, Same Great Taste
Snævar Sölvason’s independent film ‘Albatross’ sits squarely within what’s sometimes jokingly referred to as Iceland’s signature cinematic genre: ninety minutes or so in the company of a man running in place. In ‘Albatross’, that man is Tommi (Ævar Örn Jóhannsson), who follows…
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Meet The Directors!
The Reykjavík International Film Festival (en.riff.is) runs through October 5, at Bíó Paradís, Háskólabíó, and elsewhere. The program encompasses features, documentaries, and short films by more than 100 directors–a handful of whom generously answered our questionnaire prior to bringing their films to…
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The American Indie Filmmaker’s Guide to Iceland
The old man is describing how impressed he was with Geyser. “A cum shot to the sky,” he says, in his throaty good-old-boy accent. “Like the Devil’s exploding.” In ‘Land Ho!’, which opens the eleventh annual Reykjavík International Film Festival on September…
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Who is Alice Olivia Clarke?
Aside from the leads, most of the actors in ‘Land Ho!’ are either Icelanders in service jobs, or people associated with the production. Alice Olivia Clarke, who appears in a crucial late scene, is neither. Canadian-born, Alice Olivia has lived in Iceland…
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The Perfect Landscape
Art is a contested space in ‘The Perfect Landscape.’ Public sculptures are graffitied over, a bucket of red paint is sloshed on a museum wall, windows are smashed at an installation, and art experts x-ray and scrape at their gallery’s new marquee…