Few films can boast such raw and gritty realism as VOLCANO (ELDFJALL, Iceland, 2011). While the film is set in its native Iceland, it is a far cry from the expansive Nordic Eden we have been exposed...

  For all of us die-hard cinephiles getting our daily fix on recent film news and festival features, I want us to remember that we would never be where we are now with film if it weren't for...

   The first time I had heard about Béla Tarr was from a Serbian filmmaker friend who told me that if I wanted to know some real avant-garde plucky cinema, I hadn’t lived until I had seen a Béla...

 BELA TARR receives Lifetime Achievement Award at RIFF, 2011  The legendary, exemplary, unconventional and inspiring filmmaker Bela Tarr traveled from his native Hungary to Reykjavik, Iceland last...

                photo from Venice poster at La Biennale, 68.This past week I attended the 8th annual Reykjavik Film Festival (RIFF) after going nonstop from Venice La Biennale, then to TIFF and then...

ADALBERT'S DREAM by Romanian filmmaker Gabriel Achim  When I met Romanian director Gabriel Achim, we had just pruned together for hours in Iceland's famed Blue Lagoon thermal baths, so needless to...

THE PIPE! When director Risteard O'Domhnaill (aka Richie O'Donnell) accepted his award for the RIFF ENVIRONMENTAL AWARD in Reykjavik on October 01, 2011, Richie stood up confidently in front of...

Olga Dykhovichnaya (Marina) Sergei Borisov (Andrei)This was indeed the welcome surprise of the Reykjavik International Film Festival (RIFF) this year. Newcomer Director/Writer/Producer Angelina...

still from the film THE TURIN HORSE (2011) THE TURIN HORSE (2011), the last film by celebrated Hungarian filmmaker Bela Tarr, screened in Reykjavik tonight at the 8th Reykjavik Film Festival (RIFF)....

It’s a noteworthy irony that one of the eco-documentary films awarded at this year’s Reykjavik Film Festival is ECO-PIRATE: The Story of Paul Watson (2011), a film that focuses on the notorious...