Saving Iceland

After a successful première in June this year – one critic describing the film as a “ticking timebomb” – Haukur Már Helgason’s documentary about The Reykjavík Nine is finally about to be shown in cinemas. From the 9th of September the film, named ‘Ge9n’  (‘A9ainst ’ in English, bearing the subhead ‘A motivational success story inspired by Iceland’), will be screened both with and without English subtitles in Bíó Paradís, an independently run cinema in Hverfisgata, Reykjavík. Information about international screening will be announced later but in the meantime, if not in Iceland, enjoy the film’s recently premièred trailer here below.

Ge9n trailer (EN) from SeND film tank on Vimeo.

If not familiar with The Reykjavík Nine – nine people who were charged and later acquitted of attacking Iceland’s parliament after wanting to enter the building’s public gallery on December 8th 2008, a few months after Iceland’s economic collapse – then you can read through the whole case on the nine’s official support website. Check out a short, sharp and informative video from the 2011 London Anarchist Bookfair or download a brochure that was published and distributed shortly before the case’s main procedure, which took place in January 2011.

Also take a look at Ge9n’s official website where you can find a very nice poster, a press kit and the film’s title song: Stóriðjuverkefnið mig, composed and performed by Linus Orri and Þórir Bogason. Finally, read a review of the film’s première (the one mentioning the “ticking timebomb”) and an exclusive interview with the film’s director, Haukur Már Helgason (p. 30-32).

This weekend a new documentary about the Reykjavík Nine will be premiered in Iceland. The film, called A9aginst (Ge9n in Icelandic), is directed by author, philosopher and filmmaker Haukur Már Helgason and will be shown at the documentary film festival Skjaldborg, in Patreksfjörður (on the Westfjords), on June 11th. According to the film’s website, “this feature-length documentary is a portrait, or rather nine portraits, of people charged and prosecuted in Iceland for ‘attacking parliament’ in December 2008.”

In a conversation with online newspaper Róstur, the director explained briefly his motivation for making the film:

I make the film… well, I guess because there one catches a glimpse of some potential, some possibility, a will for another kind of society, in the minds of a group of people who the state power has, by charging them, defined as a certain set. The charges basically call for an investigation about who these people, defined as enemies, are, and which thoughts someone somewhere can find so dangerous – because it was clear from the beginning that it was not the “action” in the parliament that was considered so dangerous. Read More