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FESTIVALS Iceland

Celebrating its 10th anniversary, Reykjavik wants to make discoveries

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- Unspooling between September 26 and October 6, the Icelandic film festival will screen more than 100 films, including 12 contenders for the Golden Puffin Award

Celebrating its 10th anniversary, Reykjavik wants to make discoveries

Swedish director Lukas Moodysson, French director Laurent Cantet and US director James Gray will be guests of honour at Iceland’s 10th Reykjavik International Film Festival between September 26 and October 6; they will receive the festival’s Honorary Award of Creative Excellence in Cinema, host master classes and introduce a selection of their new and older features.

Moodysson will screen his We Are the Best! [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
(photo), launched in Venice and Toronto and now entering a world festival tour also including Zürich, Rio de Janeiro, London, Warsaw, Tokyo, Lübeck, Vilnius and Sevilla. Denmark’s TrustNordisk has sold the film to more than 25 countries, most recently to the US (Magnolia Pictures).

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Cantet, whose The Class [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Carole Scotta
interview: Laurent Cantet
film profile
]
(2008) won the Palme d’Or in Cannes, will present his first English-language movie, Foxfire – Confessions of a Girl Gang [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Laurent Cantet
film profile
]
, while Gray will unspool another take on crime, immigrants and New York City, The Immigrant [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
.

This year’s programme of more than 100 films will be opened by Icelandic director Róbert I Douglas This Is Sanlitun, his first since 2005. Carlos Ottery plays an Englishman in Beijing, who fails to impress local investors and takes up teaching, but there is more on his agenda.

In the New Visions section of discoveries by young promising directors, 12 entries will compete for the Golden Puffin Award, including Indian director Ritesh Badra’s  The Lunchbox [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, which will continue to London, and German director Stephan Lacant’s Free Fall [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, which won top prize in Philadelphia.

The 2013 national Focus is directed at Greece and its financial situation, similar to Iceland’s a couple years ago, which will be discussed at the panel Iceland-Greece: The Economical Collapse and Cinema, during the Industry Days (October 2-4).

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