Dreamland the movie is out – soon to go for a festival tour – more information coming soon. Excellent reviews and now the third most popular film running in cinemas in Iceland. Five stars, four of four, five of five, four and a half of five. Here is a review in english:
The Icelandic environmental documentary Nattura–Summer 2008 will be released exclusively on iTunes on March 10/ Today (One Little Indian) via an exclusive digital distribution partnership with E1 Entertainment Distribution U.S. The film focuses on the current environmental issues that face Iceland and includes interviews with Björk along with many other well-known Icelandic figures. All proceeds from the documentary will benefit the Nattura Campaign.
The documentary continues Björk’s close involvement with the Nattura Campaign, which was founded in an effort to generate alternative, sustainable and eco-friendly ways to utilize Iceland’s natural resources. In Björk’s own words, “It is now more important than ever before to emphasize a respect for nature…I believe that profits, technological advances and working together with nature can all go hand in hand. None need to be sacrificed at the expense of the others.”
For more information on the documentary and the Nattura Campaign please visit www.nattura.info or www.bjork.com.
ICELANDIC ENVIRONMENTAL DOCUMENTARY
NATTURA–SUMMER 2008 OUT MARCH 10 ON iTUNES
We have finished editing the feature length documentary film, Dreamland, based on Dreamland – a Self Help Manual for a Frightened Nation. The new trailer will be ready soon and posted on this website. Dreamland is about a small nation seeking big solutions. How cold war politics lead to choices taken today. How Iceland has been trying to be a player in the eyes of superpowers and how this can lead to a grand collapse. The premier date will be decided next week. The documentary has been three years in the making and made for the cinema, as a large part of it is shot on 35mm film. Many of the areas have now disappeared or are under 2oo meters of cold water.
“In economics, they talk about the invisible hand that regulates the market. In Iceland, the free market became so wild that it was not fixed by an invisible hand, but an invisible guillotine. So, in one weekend, the whole class of our newly rich masters of the universe lost their heads (reputation, power, and money), and all the power and debt of the newly privatized companies fell into the hands of the people again.”
Andri Snær Magnason
Andri Snær Magnason, Sjón and Auður Jónsdóttir are represented in Bokprogrammet, NRK1 Norway February 10th. Dreamland is not yet published in Norway but the Blue Planet was recently released as an audiobook by Karviland.
NRK1 tirsdag 10. februar kl 22.30 Bokprogrammet: Litterær gulltid på Island
Andri Magnason is interviewed in this article in Washington Post from today. Strange mixup of Rome and the Titanic. Must have been an attempt to be poetic. Here is the article:
Global Financial Crisis Fells Iceland Government
Protests in Reykjavik, Other Capitals Grow as Savings and Jobs Vanish
LONDON, Jan. 26 — Iceland’s coalition government collapsed Monday, the first government to fall as a direct result of the global economic turmoil.
Prime Minister Geir Haarde said he and his cabinet would resign immediately. As personal savings have been wiped out and joblessness has soared, Icelanders — once among the world’s wealthiest people — have taken to the streets in protest, banging pots and pans and throwing eggs and toilet paper at Haarde and other parliamentary leaders.
Protests have mounted throughout Europe, where the political backlash to the crisis is growing. In Ireland, Britain, Spain and other countries where bankruptcies and home foreclosures are rising, polls show that approval ratings of leaders are sinking. In Eastern Europe and Greece, where there is less of a government safety net, protesters have spilled onto the streets by the thousands. Last month’s collapse of the Belgian government, which had been wrestling with long-standing conflicts, was also hastened by the banking crisis, analysts said.
Perhaps nowhere has the economic crash been more spectacular than Iceland, an island with 300,000 residents on the edge of the Arctic Circle. Last fall, its largest banks went bust and the value of its currency plummeted. In recent days, protests intensified as no leader took responsibility for the crash, prompting police to use tear gas for the first time in half a century.
People felt that the government was “playing the violin while the Titanic was sinking,” best-selling Icelandic author Andri Snær Magnason said in a telephone interview from Reykjavik, the capital. “Everybody who has a loan is paying 20 percent interest,” and even those who own modest homes find their salaries cannot cover what is owed, he said.
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At the protests in down town Reykjavík last saturday a person climbed up onto the parliaments roof to raise the Bonus flag. A symbol for Iceland’s international business hybris. In the introduction to Bonus Poetry on this web I wrote this last year: “Bonus is Iceland’s largest supermarketchain. It has an appealing logo, a pink grinning pig on yellow background. Many people think the logo should become our national flag. Starting with Bonus an empire emerged: Baugur group, now owning half of UKs retail stores and the crown jewel of the Danish merchant empire: Magazine du Nord.” So now you see how it would look like as a national flag.
Mikael Löfgren
En bok står i centrum i den ekonomiska kraschens Island: Andri Snær Magnasons “Draumalandið”. Den handlar om en liten nations självbild och myter. Mikael Löfgren träffar en poet med milda ögon som blev en politisk succéförfattare. Read the rest of this entry »
Dreamland – a feature length documentary will soon be released. The choices of a nation, corporations, democracy and perhaps the secret to our economic failure. Thorfinnur Gudnason and Andri Snær Magnason have been working on this project since 2006 – Produced by Ground Control Productions.
