Fridrik Thor Fridriksson: "“Long winters in Iceland predispose to creative work"

Fridrik Thor FridrikssonThe Chairman of the International Jury Fridrik Thor Fridriksson is a phenomenal storyteller – not only in his films but also in an informal chat. On the day of the first show of his film Mamma Gogo at Sofia International Film Festival, we managed to have a  ‘walk and talk’ at high speed through his works, which have enriched the history of the cinema with masterpieces like Devil’s Island,  Cold Fever and the  well-known in Bulgaria Angels of the Universe, Niceland and Children of Nature. But our talk is not only about the cinema in Iceland, this is impossible because cinema is not an isolated art or an expressive language, but a part of Everything.

– Mr Fridriksson, I propose to start our talk from the well-known but still amazing fact what a big number of artists you have per capita – bearing in mind that the population of Iceland is not very big at all…

Yes, in Iceland the artists are really a big number – over 500 active writers, music is very well developed too. As if the Iceland people have the need to express themselves by the means of art: that’s why our cultural life is so active. Our music is very popular in the world – bands such as Sigur Ros, who made the music to my film Angels of Universe or Mugison – the author of the soundtrack of another one of my films Niceland (2004) – he is already world famous. Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, the composer I’ve worked with mostly – he was a part of the rock-scene in Iceland, we’ve known each other since the college and in 1982 we made together the film Rock in Reykjavík. He also made the music to Mamma Gogo. Yes, the creative atmosphere in Iceland is very good. I do not know the reason for that but may be the long winters predispose to isolation and creative work.

You can read the whole interview on our festival's site www.siff.bg

13 March 2011