THE VIEW FROM... INDUSTRY
There have also been a number of notable Icelandic films in recent years, including The Love That Remains , Lamb and Godland . Despite producing eight to ten full-length films per year, Iceland attracts a range of global productions, with Game of Thrones , Captain America: Civil War , Interstellar and The Odyssey all partially filmed there. FILM FUNDS In 2011, the Icelandic Society of Cinematographers (ÍKS) was founded and is a member of umbrella association IMAGO. Tómas Örn Tómasson currently serves as the society’s president, having recently taken over from one of the founders, Bergsteinn Björgúlfsson. ÍKS represents the views and interests of Icelandic cinematographers to the government, Icelandic Film Fund and the movie industry. “Since ÍKS was founded, it has grown into being a stamp of approval for international productions who come to Iceland and want to use local cinematographers,” says Tómasson. Once per year, IMAGO puts on a conference where members of the association of cinematographers from each country meet up in order to discuss what’s been happening in the industry. “I went to Vienna last autumn for one of the meetings and was able to participate in the 50-year anniversary of the Austrian Association of Cinematographers,” adds Tómasson. Tómasson is also on the board of a film festival called Stockfish, which THE right production partner CAN MAKE A MAJOR DIFFERENCE”
is owned and run by associations in the film industry. He admits that the last six months in Iceland have been fairly challenging as the industry slowly recovers from the effects of Covid-19 and the Hollywood strikes. “It’s still hitting us a few years later, but lots of my colleagues around the world have said the same thing. There were lots of projects that were greenlit before Covid that just fell off the wagon.” ICELANDIC INCENTIVES The main financial incentive is Iceland’s production cost rebate. In 2022, Iceland increased the reimbursement rate for foreign film and television productions to up to 35% under certain conditions. The purpose of the change was to make Iceland more competitive internationally and attract larger film and television productions to shoot in the country. Beyond the financial incentive, Iceland offers a number of practical advantages. It is one of the safest countries in the world and incredibly well organised,
with strong infrastructure, good access from Europe and North America and a film community that is used to servicing international productions. The country also offers very experienced production houses such as RVK Studios, Truenorth, Sagafilm, Pegasus Pictures and Glassriver. What has changed over the years is the depth of production experience around those locations. “Iceland now has producers, crews, production service companies, studio facilities and post-production knowledge that allow international productions to come here with assurance they will have all the support they require,” says Steinunn L Gunnlaugsdóttir, general manager at RVK Studios. She says RVK Studios has seen this development from many sides. “The experience of working in Iceland on both our own domestic projects, with international partners and as service providers, has been important in understanding what productions
PUTTING DOWN ROOTS Children of Nature (right) was an early success, with Game of Thrones (top right) coming later. More recent productions to shoot in Iceland include True Detective (top left)
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