Hafsteinn Hafsteinsson, a graduate from Acting at The Film School, just finished acting in a full length film about Axlar-Bjorn, who is suspected of being Iceland’s only serial killer. We got to ask Hafsteinn a few questions

We began by asking Hafsteinn what film he remembers first being enthralled by

It was “Grease”. I knew all the songs by heart and pretended to swing in the armchair in the living room while I sang the song  “Sandy” over and over again. Of course fell head over heels for Olivia. My sister owned the record and I did not always have access to it. I therefor asked my parents, who were on their way to Spain, to buy the tape. They did. I then excitedly put the tape in the tape recorder and pressed play. It then became apparent that the music was dubbed, Spanish singers sang over all the songs.

Studying Acting was always in the cards for Hafsteinn

I love films and have always been interested in acting and dancing. I dance a lot and have for instance shown Bollywood dancing under the direction of  Yesmine Olsson at The Harpe and more places, and I studied ballroom dancing as a child and am quite the Lindy hopper. My greatest wish is to act in a song and dance musical film. I started acting in commercials around twenty years old and found out that my acting did not get negative comments, so I started to believe that I could do good things as an actor. I then started acting in short films and got decent reviews on my acting. Finally I decided to study acting even though I was quite successful in my job as a mediator and psychology consultant.It was a challenge to leave my comfort zone almost daily but it was amazing studying, difficult but fun. It was extremely important for me to be able to develop and evolve my talents in a protected environment.

Unfortunately not much, commercials and acting in short films  and a few minor roles in full length films, I then decided that I needed to take things into my own hands, as no one else was going to make my dreams come true. I have therefor been developing and producing a project where I play the main role, direct and write. Situation comedy that will hopefully be shown on television in a year or two, but I have already gotten positive feedback from some heavy hitters in the business.

Hafsteinn has now taken on portraying one of the most infamous Icelander of all times

I have sometimes hoped that I would get an offer to play a depressed, middle aged booze hound, living in the Thingholts. But having said that no one makes your dreams come true, I want to say that finally a talented director and script writer, David Charles Fridbertsson,  offered me a leading role in a very remarkable film, a film even my wildest dreams did not expect me to star in. My first leading role in a full length film is actually a periodic costume film that takes place in the 16th century. I play Axlar-Björn, but he is according to general knowledge the first and only Icelandic serial killer. It is a murder-love story with a very dark sense of humor. The film was recorded by an extremely talented cinematographer that has already filmed 14 full length films. All the framework was very professional and the crew was amazing. The film is now being edited and processed and will be premiering early next year.

We are excited and will of course not miss seeing the film in 2019, the lead being portrayed by a great talent

Axlar-Bjorn, Iceland’s only serial killer, returns

Students on their first semester in all departments, Directing and Producing, Creative Technology, Screenwriting and Directing, took part in SAM, a cooperation week where they work for other students in shooting and preparing their short films.

Third semester students of Directing and Producing finished a directing course under the guidance of Gunnar B. Gunnarsson (Gauragangur, Astropia), where they practiced the directors approach to scenes with the emphasis on the interplay between acting and camera work, and then began their filming period where each of them will be shooting their own short film, guided by Gunnar B.

Second semester students of Creative Technology also had a cooperation week, a SAM week. Third semester students finished editing their documentaries that they will be showing at the end of the semester. With them was the head of editing, David Alexander Corno (Undir halastjornu, Woman at war).

Third semester of Screenwriting and Directing, along with Directing and Producing, finished a directing course and began a filming period where each of them will produce their own short film.

Second semester students of Acting began work on a play that they will premiere at the end of the semester, directed by Runar Gudbrandsson (Svartur a leik, XL). Third semester students sat a course in acting and voicing with Thorunn Erna Clausen (Loi), where they continued work on a musical they will be showing at the end of the semester, as well as doing a course in acting in front of a camera, where they prepared scenes that were directed by professional directors.

Kinema, the Film Schools student organisation, offered a Script Workshop on Tuesday and Karaoke, and ended the week with a Beer evening on Friday.

Filming of graduation projects finished this week and shooting began on third semester short films

Here you can view the marvelous graduation booklet this year, please come and enjoy varied showings of the years work

Sveinn Larus Hjartarson graduated from Acting in the spring of 2018 and here you can enjoy his showreel

We congratulate him and will follow the future with excitement

Sveinn Larus Hjartarson, a graduate of Acting

The shortfilm  BROTHERS by IFS graduate Þórður Pálsson (Thordur Palsson) has been invited to this year’s Palm Spring International ShortFest.

Pálsson recently graduated from the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield and recently signed up with the Sayle Screen agency in London. He graduated from the Icelandic Film School in 2012 as a Director/producer and has won numerous awards at  international festivals for his graduation film, A HARD WORLD.

 In 2015 Thordur graduated from the prestigious NFTS with an MA in Directing Fiction.

IFS graduates film to appear at Palm Springs ShortFest

For the last 10 years Bio Paradis has had a special place for both students and staff of The Icelandic Film School. Every Friday our students have flocked there for film history, and to watch carefully chosen films that have completely changed the genre of film making.

Our students have had the opportunity to watch these films in the highest possible quality in a film theater. These classes are of course a basic necessity in the education of Icelandic film makers.

At the end of each semester we celebrate our “harvest” in Bio Paradis. For a whole week our students show the fruit of their efforts on the same screen where they watched the masterpieces. At the end of the week of premieres our students graduate from the school in a festive ceremony, and of course in a film theater. 


We challenge both the government and the city to find a workable solution to this problem and save Bio Paradis.

This cultural home of films is simply to important to vanish from our society.

Kristin Lea Sigridardottir, actress and acting coach in “Let me fall”

Twelve IFS graduates worked on Iceland´s largest TV-production, Trapped

Konni Gotta graduated from Acting at The Icelandic Film School and recently signed a contract with Áttan.
We had a chance to speak við Konni and pry a little about him, the studies and the future

I went to the theater when I was 7 years old and saw Stefán Karl play the dentist along with other roles. I was blown away and decided then and there that I would become an actor when I grew up. That thought never changed and I was always the clown in my group of friends. Then in 2010 I applied to study acting in The Film School and all of a sudden, studying was fun!

Film making is an amazing adventure and Konni has certainly found himself a part of it

What fascinates me the most about film making is how varied the job is. I love acting and writing material and I am the kind of person that can not be stuck in a certain routine and that is why film making is for me.
Stefán Karl, Jim Carrey and Robert Downey Jr are men I look up to, they all have an insane control of their bodies and that fascinates me completely

The school studies are not easy, but it is up to each pupil to confront it as they best can

I matured immensly at The Film School and the most important lesson I learned was to take risks, it is alright to fail if you learn from it. I also learned to take critisism. I had the urge to headbut my teacher Darren when he first told me I was completly messing up, but the slowly I learnt to accept it and then I was able to work on what I needed to improve

The first steps after graduating might have been small, but he took a leap recently

When I graduated from The Film School I had plans to work for one year and save up so I could go abroad and keep learning, but saying it is easier than doing it. When one has been studying his whole life and then finally gets a fair amount of money, one tends to spend it rather than save it and that is what happened to me. I worked as a truck driver both for MS and Papco, and then I often drove for different projects in between, like in advertising and such as they always need people with truck driving capabilities for them. I have done a bit of standup and been a presenter at yearly celebrations for companies and such. I acted in a few commercials and then I have been active on Snapchat both on attan_official and konnigotta .
Since I graduated unfortunately acting has only been a side line job for me, until now. I signed a contract at the end of summer with Áttan and now my job is a hell of a lot of fun. There I am able to put my ideas into actions, act, film videos, travel and so much more.
I have yet to play a major part in a movie, perform on stage and be part of making Áramótaskaupið, but give me 7 years and I will have completed it all and started focusing on my next goals

Here is one of the newest show from Áttan, but in it you can also see Hafsteinn Vilhelmsson and Mokina Orlowska, both graduated from The Film School and it was shot by Dagur De´medici Ólafsson :

There is no question that Konni is on the fast track in his carreer and we wish him the best of luck

Konni Gotta, a graduate of Acting, allowed us to pry a bit

Even if Bylgja Babýlons graduated from the Icelandic Film School as an actress she has increasingly been working as a stand up comedian.

Currently Bylgja is working in London and having just returned from a tour in the Baltic countries. She discovered yesterday that a video she had sent to Jokenation, a stand up competition held by Montreux Comedy had been chosen to take part in their online voting.

“I´ve never sent anything of this sort before and to be frank I had completely forgotten sending this one about a month ago until I by chance found out that this was online for the voting since 1st October.”

Bylgja points out this is probably the cause of her attention deficit disorder. No wonder she has had little or no time to follow this up since she´s been on the road for a while.

“I´ve just finished off a tour of four days with Comedy Estonia, to Estonia, Latvia and Finland and from there I went straight to London to take part in some Open Mic evenings me and my friend Snjólaug were invited to after having sent them some samples of our work to Smile emotion. ”

And Bylgja is still in London. She says her acting training at IFS has been a great asset for the stand up career. We ask her if it isn´t difficult to change gear like that from the Baltic countries to London and her answer is that it´s not so difficult. If you make sure to change out some of the private jokes of the locals…

“…it seems all nations find the same urge to laugh at problems our trips to the toilet cause or what difficulties we run into during this one time of the month, the period.”

We recommend that you tune into Bylgja Babýlons act at Jokenation and that you give her your vote. And of course we wish her all the best in here adventures in London.

Acting is a great preparation for Stand up comedians

Knútur Haukstein Ólafsson, a graduate from Acting at The Icelandic Films School, was awarded, along with a talented group,  “Best Editing: Music Video” at the “WideScreen Film & Music Video Festival” in Miami, Florida, USA, for the music video “Hope” . The origin of the video can be traced to his days at The Film School and we got to pry a bit about it

The idea behind the music video to the song “Hope” by the band Major Pink, manifested when I was on my second semester in Acting at The Film School. During this time I was wrestling with a deep sense of loneliness, depression and suicidal thoughts that eventually lead to the making of the video. As bizarre as it might sound, the movie “Taxi Driver” (1976) by Martin Scorsese, was one of the greatest influence behind the video. The line said by Travis Bickle ;”I’m God’s lonely man” sounded in my head constantly, but it came to me to flip it and change the line to  “I’m God’s lonely woman”, but the video is about a lonely nun that has no one to turn to at the precipice of Armageddon. The reason behind that then reveals itself. The video is really about freedom from self created pain. As an aware being, the human is in many regards insane, but that insanity has its roots in different thoughts that more often than not appear in the form of suffering. The video is about getting rid of the head, ripping off the chains and throwing away the pain, that in this instance is manifested as a nuns robes.Some trivia, our video, that does not have more than three thousand views on Youtube and cost less than 15.000 ISK to produce, beat out another video with almost two and a half million views and definitely a bigger budget.

Icelandic music video wins international award

The Icelandic Film School is looking for graduated students that are interested to take part in the “Talent Village 2019” of the Les Arcs film festival.  
All together 8 students from film schools around the world will partake in the workshop at the film school in Lyon, as well as introducing their full length project to producers in the festivals Co-production Village. The festival itself will pay for flights and upkeep of those chosen.

The Film School will send 3-4 applications from graduated students to the festival, that the festival committee will then choose from. The deadline for applications to the school is the 1st of May, and you can apply to our Head of Studies, Hrafnkell Stefansson, through his email; hrafnkell@kvikmyndaskoli.is


We ask our graduates that have a full length project in development (3-5 page synop minimum) to apply and we will then choose the best 3-4 projects to send to the committee.

Announcement to graduated students of The Film School

The fall semester has begun today, Thursday the 16th of August. An outstanding group of freshmen has begun their studies in all four departments of the school. The group is excited and we expect many enthralling projects during the semester.

At the end of the ceremony our traditional picture was taken in front of the school, including both students and faculty.

A new semester had begun at The Film School

Sigridur Bara Steinthorsdottir, graduated from Acting in the spring of 2018 and here you can enjoy her showreel

We congratulate her and will be following her future career

Sigridur Bara Steinthorsdottir, a graduate from Acting

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Axlar-Bjorn, Iceland’s only serial killer, returns

Filming of graduation projects finished this week and shooting began on third semester short films

Graduation booklet 2018

Sveinn Larus Hjartarson, a graduate of Acting

Core Courses

IFS graduates film to appear at Palm Springs ShortFest

Save Bio Paradis

It is graduation time !

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