Fridrik Thor Fridriksson

Oscar-nominated director Fridrik Thor Fridriksson and co-director Bergur Bernburg helm this lovely documentary portrait of influential Icelandic landscape painter Georg Gudni.

Mamma Gógó is about Gógó, an elderly lady, who is diagnosed with Alzheimer disease and her son’s and family’s reaction to her illness. While Gógó is continuously getting herself into trouble, of the kind only a person with Alzheimer can, the son, the director, is struggling with financial troubles after his film Children of Nature has flopped in the cinema. As Gógó‘s disease progresses her family decides that it is best for her to move to a nursing home. Gógó and her deceased husband, who appears on the scene, are not happy with that decision. The director is dependent on others when it comes to his finances and when Gógó settles into the nursing home he decides to sell his mother’s apartment and valuable artwork but the profits of the sale help him to get by.

A Mother's Courage (aka The Sunshine Boy) is a moving, compassionate portrayal of a mother's desperate quest to understand the perplexing condition that controls her son. A journey through different countries, where every stop-over opens a new path into the depths of autism - and places her son in a strikingly different perspective as it reaches the end.

Jet lives a joyful life working at a factory with his girlfriend who he's deeply in love with. Shortly after they decide to get married and live together happily ever after her cat, who she has a weird affection for, dies. The girlfriend falls into depression which could (strangely enough) lead to her death and the only way to give her a purpose to live and save her is to tell her the meaning of life.

Simon a mysterious man with a past returns to Iceland with the intention to end his no good life. Before he can complete his task he meets a young women DÚA who he believes might be his daughter. When she gets into trouble with the police Simon represses his death wish and decides to help her out. Together they flee to the city of Hamburg and smuggle with them what used to be the greatest export of the Vikings, an Icelandic Falcon. Their plan is to sell it to wealthy Arabs.

On Top - Iceland, a lighthouse, a cold winter evening. Her thoughts drift back to that summer ... to bathing in the hot springs ... to when they first met ... and embraced. Down Under - Australia, the desert, a blistering heat wave. His pickup stops at an icehouse ... he lays the blocks neatly on the buckboard ... and drives off haunted by a aching memory. Without dialogue or comment, save for verses from a sonnet by John Keats, Fridrik Thor Fridriksson links the thoughts, the emotions, the sensual longing of young lovers at opposite ends of the world. A tone poem, a collage of sight and sound.

The story of an Icelandic man and his slow descent into madness. Along his journey he meets Dagný, the initial cause of his breakdown. Other people he meets in the asylum have been committed for various reasons, such as signing cheques for Adolf Hitler and, believing themselves to be writing songs for the Beatles and telepathically transmitting to the band.

Devil's Island is a bitter sweet tale of Iceland in the fifties. Life is rough in Reykjavik's post-war slum of Camp Thule, where the abandoned US military barracks have been turned into makeshift homes. Struggling wives and their hard-working husbands try to make ends meet. The younger generation dreams of dollars, Rock'n'Roll and the American way of life. To celebrate or to drown their misery - they're never short of a good reason to booze. Devil's Island vividly depicts the everyday life of a wacky family, their neighbours and friends and shows how some of their dreams come true and others don't.

A Japanese businessman travels to Iceland and has a series of misadventures while venturing to a remote area to perform a traditional burial ritual where his parents died several years back.

This Icelandic tale, loosely based on the real-life experiences of director Fridrik Fridriksson tells the saga of a boyhood spent in Iceland in the 1960s.

An elderly couple leave their retirement home to make one last journey back to their home in the Western Fjords.

A whale-boat is making its final whaling tour of the season. It pursues and catches a whale, and then proceeds home. The men working on the boat have to find themselves different employment now that the season is over. Among the crew are two friends, Grímur and Bubbi. The film mainly concerns itself with their efforts to make some kind of contact with what is going on in Reykjavik.

Experimental film of a trip around Iceland, filmed on the circular highway with a wide angle lens camera registering one frame every 12 seconds.

In the summer of 1984, Iceland's king of country music, Hallbjörn Hjartarson, arranged the first and only Icelandic cowboy-festival. This celebration of western culture took place in Skagaströnd, a village of 700 inhabitants in the north of Iceland, and was attended by Iceland's leading country singers. This documentary describes, in an objective fashion, the general atmosphere of the festival and gives a portrait of the star of the show, Hallbjörn Hjartarson and his views on life and stardom.

Rokk í Reykjavík (Rock in Reykjavik) gives a thorough overview of the powerful and expanding rock scene in Iceland. Most of the film consists of performances by a wide variety of rock-groups in various clubs in Reykjavik in 1981-82. There are also interviews with members of the groups representing different views on such features of the rock scene as sex, drugs and politics. 19 groups appear in the film.

A tale of how Njál, a character from the Icelandic Sagas, is burned at the stake.

Nomina Sunt Odiosa is Fridrik Thór Fridriksson’s first film. The title is in Latin and means names are not necessary even pointless. Maybe that was a statement from the director for future films to come. Scenes from a school graduation party mix with shots of soft-drink bottles a conveyor belt. Both the bottles and the students are alike, universal, unoriginal and, above all, nameless. The film was screened at a school anniversary in March 1975 and broadcast on the only television station a few months later.