| Summary: | Icelandic cinema is comprised of both familiar features common to all national cinemas and unique ones that make it stand out among all the others. In fact, with its single distinct language, official state religion, government-sponsored cultural production (including cinema), “natural” island borders, and a mostly homogenous population, it comes close to capturing the essence of the concept of national cinema that is so rarely borne out by actuality. Conversely, what makes Icelandic cinema different from the “typical” national cinema is its extreme smallness—arguably the smallest one in all of world cinema. The year 1980 marks the most important turning point in the history of Icelandic cinema since it was then that the first films funded by the newly established Icelandic Film Fund were released in cinemas. Before then, and all the way back to the early twentieth century, pioneering filmmakers made numerous documentaries, the occasional narrative feature or even experimental film. But without state support and lacking infrastructure, such efforts were intermittent and lacking in consistency. That all changed during the 1980s as a new generation of filmmakers began the work of establishing a national cinema that privileged local talent and stories and was often inspired by canonical Icelandic literature. After some striking box-office successes in its early years the fledgling industry found itself in financial crisis as the decade drew to a close. The problem was solved through an increase in international partnership and the garnering of financial support from pan-Nordic and European film funds, resulting in a shift from a national to transnational emphasis during the 1990s. Another global turn emerged in the first decade of the twenty-first century as foreign runaway productions—led by Hollywood—increasingly made Iceland their home. In a very short span of time a tiny local cinema had developed into a complex industry, well integrated into the circuits of world cinema. Certainly, smaller nations (including ...
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