The staff at Fenrir Films are working on exciting projects and among them are former students of The Film School

We got hold of Arnar Benjamín Kristjánsson, managing director, and were able to delve a little bit into the companies beginnings, but it started when they were students at The Film School. Their venture began in 2011 and has grown steadily since.

Most of us began working together at our second term in The Film School in 2011, when we made the shortfilm „Eitt skot“. At that time we were only four persons of the eventual eight, but when the school had to temporarily close in the fall of 2011, the schools director let us know that the equipment rental would be open to us during the closing and we took him at his word and made the web series „Ævintýri á einkamál“. At that time three more people were added and the group became a team. Later one of the group withdrew and Hilmar Loftsson, who was not from The Film School, but had studied animation and special effects at Tækniskólinn, joined the team. We formally started the company in 2013 and we have made two full length films and 12 short films so far

With a plethora of ideas they saw an opening in the market

We just want to tell stories. When we were students the subject of how Icelandic films tended to be dull and similar was often approached and we simply wanted to change that. Mankind has the ability to tell stories and where would we be without that?

The team is extremely varied and can therefore accept many different projects and challenges, including on an international scale

We are eight owners and founders, but we also have three coworkers that are not owners but work with us in most of our projects. Arnar Benjamín is the managing director and producer, his job is to finance the films as well as schedule shoots and more. Guðni Líndal is a director and scriptwriter, who is also the head of development, that is he develops most of the assignments we take and works with incoming directors to adjust his scripts before they starts shooting. Páll Ingi is a script writer and is also VP of development; Viggó Hansson is a cameraman and films most of our projects. Stefán Örn is also a cameraman but is mostly a „focus puller“ and first assistant cameraman. Ari Rannveigarson is our soundman, Eyjólfur Ásberg is our assistant director and Hilmar Loftsson does our graphic design. Then we have three others: Einar Pétursson producer who is located in the States and will be in charge of our offices that we plan to open there in October, Haraldur Thorlacius is also a producer and Simon Deely has recently joined us as a script reader in London and will be in charge of reading the scripts we receive in English.

They obviously do not have a quiet moment and plenty of items in the works

We just finished shooting two short films in Edinburgh in Scotland. „Donor“ is directed by Guðni Líndal who also wrote the script and then „A Skinny Girls Guide to Gaining Weight” that was also written by Guðni but directed by Sölmundur Ísaks. We plan on them being ready at the beginning of October and will submit them to international film festivals. On top of that we have acquired the rights to the book „Þín eigin þjóðsaga“ by Ævar Þór Benediktsson and are working on transforming it into a television show that Guðni and Ævar are writing together.
We are also in the development stages of a film called „Among Shadows“ in collaboration with both Swedish and Finnish producers, as well as working on a full length feature film by Guðni Líndal, so we have many projects running.

A lot of work has gone into building the company and that shows

We have spent five years to build up a reputation and recognition in the field and all that work is slowly starting to pay off. We are opening an office in Los Angeles next fall when Hilmar will be moving there and he and Einar will head up that office.
Our dream is to be able to do our own projects as we so have many exciting ideas to choose from.

It will be interesting to follow the productions of Fenrir Films in the future and we wish them the best of luck on their endeavors