The Blue Planet by Andri Snær Magnason will be one of three books to be read in the Nordic Library week, 8th – 14th of November 2010, taking place in more than 2000 libraries in all the nordic and many of the Baltic countries. The theme of the Nordic Library week this year is – “The magical north”. The other books in focus this week are from the Edda, and stories by John Lindqvist and Lene Kaaberbøl. The Blue Planet has been published in more than 20 countries and staged in 6 countries.  In the Göteborg Bookfair Andri will attend a seminar the 25th of September. More information in many languages can be found here.

At the screenings of Dreamland at the Toronto HotDocs Film Festival director Andri Snær Magnason gave out some bottles of pure volcanic ash from Eyjafjallajökull. The winners were those with the best questions at the Q&A. The bottles were signed by Jónsi that just performed in Toronto, Alex – Jónsi’s boyfriend and Andri. The idea comes from Dee Shanger – he is a member of the charity group, “Promoters Without Borders”. You can buy ash here at www.nammi.is and support the locals under the ash cloud. At the same site you can also buy Dreamland, the book in Icelandic and English, the film with English subtitles and voiceover and the soundtrack by Valgeir Sigurðsson.

February 28. 2010. Andri Snær Magnason’s Acceptance speech – at the Kairos Award Ceremony of the Alfred Toepfer Stiftung F.V.S in Hamburg. 

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, my Dear Friends, Colleagues and my Dear Family og hæ – krakkar!

I would like to thank Mr. Christoph Stolzl and Mr. Halldór Guðmundsson for their kind words and all of you for this great honour.

I you ask an Icelandic child about Hamburg the first thing that will come to it’s mind is the word game that is often played when travelling in a car: “What are you doing with the money the lady from Hamburg gave to you?”. You must answer but you may not say “yes”, “no”, “black” or “white”. So you say: I bought a car. Was it red? Indeed – it was read? Not blue ?- No… Then you are out.  So it was funny when I told my children we would actually meet the lady from Hamburg. But we had to use the money on something very special – something between yes and no, black and white. Maybe that is the real space where art lives.

But why did I take this path in life? If you ask my psychologist he would say that it is because I have two mothers – they are identical twins – that creates a very good ground for a strange mind and some complexes – a douple öedipus to deal with for example. Despite sharing the same genes and upbringing – they have opposite veiws on everything. That I might have from my mothers, the ability to see things from two correct perspectives and never quite agree with myself. 

If you would ask my brother he would blame it on Lego – I hoped I would never grow up from Lego. But later I found out that Lego is quite like language – you have prefabricated parts but can build a whole world from them. But the cool thing is that language is bigger, more bricks – and endless colors. Even an old language spoken by very few people – like Icelandic, can be used to create almost anything. And then it can be translated to German or Chinese.

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Dreamland will participate in a few nordic film festivals next week and author Andri Snær Magnason will participate in readings, debates and q&a’s after the film.

READING IN HELSINKI THURSDAY

On thursday Andri is having a reading in Helsinki in Nifin. 

DOCPOINT HELSINKI

Dreamland is the opening film of DocPoint Helsinki and is proud to be the opening film of the first DocPoint festival in Tallinn.On Friday Andri Snær Magnason, one of the directors will attend a screening of Dreamland in Helsinki and answer questions from the audience.

GÖTEBORG FILM FESTIVAL

Dreamland has been invited to the Göteborg film festival. Here is some information about the screenings, saturday the 30th of january – (sold out), sunday and monday.

PANEL DISCUSSION GÖTEBORG

On sunday, january 31 at 17:00 there will be a panel discussion based on Dreamland and the film festivals concept, Sharing. Among participants in the panel is mr. K-G Hammar – former Arch Bishop. Here is some information:

Sunday. 31. January. 17.00 Atalante. Sharing: The Resources of nature

The environment is what we all share. The question is how we share it. In his documentary Dreamland, Andri Snær Magnason focuses on the crossroads at which the Icelandic nation stands: should they put their money in the aluminum industry or concentrate on preserving the Icelandic nature? What is the value of a mountain? Snær Magnason´s film serves as a starting point for a panel discussion about the good and bad consequences of globalization, and about the role film and art at large can play in relation to environmental issues. 

Moderator: Anders Johansson, PhD in Literature Panel: Andri Snær Magnason, director, K-G Hammar, Visiting Professor in Theology, Caroline Peterson from the magazine Camino, and Tyrone Martinsson, photographer and researcher. The seminar will be held in English. A co-operation between Göteborg International Filmfestival, Glänta, Göteborgs Fria Tidning and Svenska Kyrkan

In Oslo there is a Human wrongs film festival 3rd – 7th of february 2010 where you can see Dreamland. In Copenhagen there will be a screening the 4th of February 2010 in Nordatlantens brygge. Andri Magnason will attend the screening. 

CINEMA POLITICA

Last but not least – if you are in Canada – screenings by Cinema Politica in University Campuses are going on. Toronto tomorrow. More info here.

Here you can listen to an interview and a poem, by Andri Snær Magnason on Melting Point. As BBC tells us: A feature by Nina Perry exploring the environmental, cultural and musical significance of the icy landscapes of Greenland, Iceland and the Highlands of Scotland. Featuring the words of an Icelandic writer, a Greenlandic fisherman, a drama therapist and an ice-climbing fiddle-playing mountain rescuer interwoven with spectacular recordings of the ice sheet as it calves and a specially composed musical soundscape.

Broadcast on: BBC Radio 3, 9:30pm Saturday 21st November 2009. Duration: 30 minutes. Available online until: 10:02pm Saturday 28th November 2009.

 Nordic Documentary

Now you can see Dreamland in Reykjavik at the Nordisk Panorama short film and documentary festival. It will be in Regnboginn (Rainbow) theater saturday september 26th at 10 AM and Sunday at 6 PM. Here are the films in the competition: Here is the link to Nordisk Panorama:

Here below is the list of films competing for the prize of Best Nordic Documentary at Nordisk Panorama 2009 in Reykjavik.

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Imagine seeing a tourist promotional video. A beautiful fjord, magnificent Peer Gynt by Grieg soundtrack and you see the slogan: “The worlds most beautiful adventure”. Then you go to Stavanger in Norway – and you take the cruise with Rodne Cruises and they try to recreate exactly the tourist promotional experience – with soundtrack and everything. You get exactly what you payed for – by blasting Grieg – the tourist promotional ad has been “recreated” in reality – it becomes more than reality and better. They totally meet your expectations.

In one of my favorite books, Travels in Hyperreality, Umberto Eco travels through the hyperreality of American Tourist destinations. He describes how reality is recreated in museums, theme parks and the Disneylands of America. How they constantly meet your expectations by creating destinations that are better than art, better than history, more natural than nature. You can see the Venus de Milo, with arms and everything. This also applies to the largest pyramid in the world – it’s in Las Vegas. The goal of the architect was simple – if you have been in the Las Vegas pyramid, you will be disappointed by the pyramids of Egypt.  They will be smaller, less “real”. This video is the Norwegian version of Hyperreality. It is not enough to be actually in “The worlds most beautiful adventure”. You must be stimulated even more – by blasting Greig at 200 decibels – they give you the true Norwegian Fjord experience – the most beautiful moment of your lifetime.

Dreamland will be published this year in Japan by NHK and in Denmark by Tiderne Skifter. The Blue Planet will be published in China in the next days and it has just been published in Lithauenia by Sara. Next year Lubbe publishers in Germany will publish LoveStar and they have proposed a marketing slogan: ,,Imagine in Icelanders ruled the world”. In short the book is about an Icelandic corporation that expands so greatly that it causes the end of the world. It came out first in Iceland quite before the crash, even before anyone here had a private jet and quite a lot has unfolded since making it very interesting to see how the german readers will find it. Here is a small chapter from the book in a New York book blog. Dreamland the movie will participate in Nordisk Panorama here in Reykjavik, it will have it’s international premier in november in Amsterdam and in january it will be in the Göthenburg film festival. In Reykjavik you can see the film in September at Nordisk Panorama. Andri Snær Magnason is now attending Kapitell in Stavanger, 17th and 18th of september with Sjon and Hallgrimur Helgason. Oct 2-5 he will be in Festival Internationale in Italy.