03/09/2007

In four days, Icelandics will be introduced to Gudny Halldorsdottir’s Quiet Storm (Veðramót), one of the filmmaker’s most personal films to be released by on September 7 with four prints.

Gudny is one of Iceland’s most established filmmakers, with some 15 features, TV series and documentary films to her credit, mostly comedies, including the 1992 acclaimed The Men’s Choir. With Quiet Storm, set in the 1970s hippy period, Halldorsdottir turns to drama to capture an episode of her own life which she recalls with sadness.

As an idealist young girl in her early 20ies, she was sent to work with some friends at an institution for juvenile delinquents. Flower power was the moto. The young hippies thought that with their ‘coolness’ and openness, they could help. Nobody really knew anything about the teenagers-boys and girls. Why they were there and for how long. 30 years later, Halldorsdottir found out that some of the girls had been sexually abused. “When I heard the truth, I was incredibly shocked as I had no idea about what had happened there. The film is my way of saying sorry to those victims”, explains the filmmaker.

The €1.2m period film was produced by Halldorsdottir’s production partner Halldor Thorgeirsson for Umbi Film, in co-production with Nordisk Film. Quiet Storm was supported by the Icelandic Film Fund, Nordisk Film & TV Fond, and some private investors put up around 10% of the financing.

“There is much more money today than ever before in Iceland, private investors with cultural ambitions, and those who invested in our film trusted us completely”, said Thorgeirsson.