Biography

March 8, 1977 · Reykjavík, Iceland

Is based in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Graduated from the Prague film school FAMU in June 2004.

Béliers (2015) could in some sense be considered a very Scandinavian film, being a cocktail of drama and black humor. I think it could be compared with certain recent Nordic films, Bent Hamer's Kitchen stories - chroniques de cuisine (2003) and Noi l'albinos (2003) by Dagur Kári. But "Hrútar" is more realistic than those films and maybe I was also a little bit influenced by the so-called Romanian New Wave. I was also inspired by the novel "Independent People" by Halldór Laxness, written in 1935. Although written in different time period, the book has similar themes...[2015]

[on the cinematography of Béliers (2015)] [We used an] Arri Alexa ]digital camera] with anamorphic lenses. I like the softness of the Alexa and the skin tones. We basically wanted "Rams" to look like it was shot on film. We would have shot it on 35mm if we had the money. The organic, soft film-look would had been perfect for the story and the surroundings in the isolated Icelandic farming valley. We got pretty close by shooting on Alexa with anamorphic lense and some tricks we did in the grading. [2015]

There had been many reports indicating that Béliers (2015) was strongly tipped for a foreign-language nomination so we were surprised that we didn't make the cut. Each year, a number of movies that are presented to be strong contenders don't make it; last year, Ruben Östlund was one of them and it's a strange experience to be in that place today. But maybe they just didn't like the film that much. (...) Competing for an Oscar nomination is not a fair game and I think a cap on campaign spending would create a more even-level playing field, allowing more films from smaller countries with emerging film industries to get some attention. [2016]