TIFF Docs HORIZON by Bergur Bernburg & Fridrik Thor Fridriksson

2015, Iceland / Denmark, 80 min, world premiere

Press contact:

Thessa Mooij +1.646.637.4700 [email protected] Press materials www.silversaltpr.com

SYNOPSIS:

Oscar-nominated director Fridrik Thor Fridriksson and co-director Bergur Bernburg helm this lovely documentary tribute to the influential Icelandic landscape painter Georg Gudni, who passed away at the untimely age of 50 while running a half marathon.

TIFF programmer Steve Gravestock: “From the beginning of his career, Icelandic master Fridrik Thor Fridriksson has been uniquely attuned to and intrigued by his country's stunning, almost lunar landscape: in his early film The Ring Road, he documented a car trip that literally circled the country, and his Academy Award- nominated Children of Nature depicted an elderly couple retreating into the wilds to live out their last days together. In the new documentary Horizon, a study of influential Icelandic landscape painter Georg Gudni Hauksson, Fridriksson and co-director Bergur Bernburg bring the landscape front and centre, exploring its emotional and spiritual impact on his countrymen.

A product of the early-eighties artistic boom in Iceland, which saw the arrival of punk and paved the way for such musicians as Björk and Sigur Rós, Gudni was an adherent to the modish painting techniques of the period. At the same time, he began to secretly paint landscape scenes (which were out of fashion at the time), selectively utilizing modern approaches to veer his work towards near-abstraction while endowing his work with a profound sense of the spiritual. (It's this work that earned him an international following, inspiring collectors such as Viggo Mortensen.)

The film's attempts to duplicate Gudni's ways of seeing the landscape are frequently breathtaking. One discerns a deep aesthetic kinship between the painter and the filmmaker. Both a heartfelt appreciation of an artistic colleague and an oblique artistic manifesto, Horizon is a visually striking excursion into the spirit of a land.

TIFF SCREENINGS:

Press day: Sun Sept 13 with co-directors Bergur Bernburg and Fridrik Thor Fridriksson Press screenings: Sat Sept 12 @ 6.45pm, Scotiabank 5 Wed Sept 16 @ 1.45pm, Scotiabank 5 Public screenings: Sun Sept 13 @ 4.45pm, Jackman Hall (world premiere in the presence of the directors) Tue Sept 15 @ 11.45am, Cinema 4, Paul + Leah Atkinson Family Cinema Sat Sept 19, 9.30am, Jackman Hall

DIRECTORS’ STATEMENT:

The word horizon derives from the Greek "ορίζων̔ κύκλος" (horizōn kyklos), "separating circle",from the verb "ορίζὡ " (horizō), "to divide, to separate", and that from "ὅρος" (oros), "boundary landmark"

Georg Gudni’s main goal was capturing the Icelandic nature. HORIZON is a personal discovery of the mindset of contemporary landscape painter, whom we knew personally. For us too – this is a very personal journey.

It was a major blow for the Icelandic art scene and us as well when he passed away unexpectedly while he was running his marathon into the horizon.

We wanted to introduce current and future audiences to his work and its underlying philosophy. Even though we know that his work will keep his name alive, we want to honour his memory forever with HORIZON as a cinematic tombstone.

ABOUT THE DIRECTORS:

Fridrik Thor Fridriksson was born in Iceland. He is a self-taught filmmaker and the founder of the Icelandic Film Corporation. Many of his films have premiered at TIFF, including Movie Days (94), Cold Fever (95), Devil's Island (96), (00), Falcons (02), Niceland (04), The Sunshine Boy (09), and Mamma Gógó (10). Horizon (15) is his latest film.

Bergur Bernburg was born in Iceland and lives in Denmark. He is a photographer, media editor, and producer. Horizon (2015) is his directorial debut.

ESSAY by Jon Proppe, philosopher, curator and art critic

Horizon

The Icelandic landscape painter Georg Gudni died in 2011, aged 50. He had made his mark on the Icelandic art scene already in the 1980s, while still in art school, with his austere and contemplative paintings of mountains and highland scenes. These he painted at a time when neo-expressionism was in its heyday, in Iceland as elsewhere in the West, and most young painters went for explosive force and strong, vibrant colors. Georg Gudni’s paintings were quiet and definitely muted in color, patiently built up layer by layer, and they addressed a genre that was generally considered passé. Yet those who saw them realized his rare talent. He received the praise of the critics and it became clear that this young artist had in fact done what the neo-expressionists had sought to do; he had revitalized Icelandic painting with his highly original contemporary take on its most old-fashioned and over-used theme.

The first modernist painters in Iceland, working in the early 1900s, turned to the landscape, going into the mountainous interior of their volcanic homeland and bringing back paintings that opened people’s eyes to the beauty and majesty of its barren peaks and windswept plains. Landscape became the primary focus in Icelandic art for the next several decades until the 1950s and 1960s, when it was replaced by abstraction, and later conceptual art. By 1980, there were few serious artists who still painted landscapes. For a young painter to tackle it was a daring, almost foolhardy risk.

In the film HORIZON, Georg Gudni tells the story of his artistic development. We see him moving about his studio, pulling out paintings and talking about them, explaining their connections, his way of working, and the deep thought and research that went into them. The film weaves this story of many strands, lingering on the paintings, cutting to images of the stunning Icelandic landscape that inspired them, adding interviews with his contemporaries and exploring side stories such as that of Georg Gudni’s friendship and cooperation with the Danish-American actor Viggo Mortensen.

The film moves slowly, drawing us into the slow rhythm of the landscape and the slow, deliberate movement of the artist’s brush across the canvas. The story is all about the artist’s vision and it builds gradually as we follow him through his discoveries and the different turns his painting took over the years. At times it becomes almost like a philosophical detective story as Georg Gudni explains how he arrived at his discoveries on the metaphysical impact of the landscape and how he could render it in painting. Because of the way the story is told in words and images we come as close to Georg Gudni’s works as is possible without actually seeing them. The film allows us to share in the experience of his strangely immersive paintings, as described in the film by Viggo Mortensen:

“We met Georg just by chance. We were at the museum, the national museum, and he had an exhibition there at the time. There was something about the paintings that I liked immediately. There was something deceptively simple at first impression and then you get closer and you see these layers. As an artist, I appreciate that there is something very powerful about it. It’s strange because it was something I hadn’t seen before, but it was very familiar at the same time. It was like I knew it even though I had never seen it.”

Seeing Horizon brings home what a loss we suffered with Georg Gudni’s death. His story breaks off in mid-career and the interviews with his friends and his wife, Sigrún Jónasdóttir, are tinged with this sense of loss. The painters Einar Garibaldi and Bernd Koberling, the art historians Bente Scavenius and Hannes Sigurdsson, along with Mortensen, all celebrate the work of this highly independent and original artist, his determination to understand the landscape and its meaning, to hone his skills and communicate his understanding to the viewer. The most engaging aspect of the film is Georg Gudni himself and his mild-mannered but enthusiastic discussion of his work, the history and purpose of art, the landscape and life itself. For him, making art was a celebration of life and that is also the mission of this film.

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TECHNICAL SPECS

Title: HORIZON Original title: SJÓNDEILDARHRINGUR Year: 2015 Countries: Iceland / Denmark Duration: 80 min Format: DCP Languages: Icelandic, Danish, English spoken, English subtitled

CREDITS

Directors: Bergur Bernburg and Fridrik Thor Fridriksson

Screenplay: Bill Rathje

Producers: Bergur Bernburg, Bill Rathje Fridrik Thor Fridriksson and Magnús Árni Skúlason

Production companies: Horizon (Sjóndeildarhringur efh)/ResearchGruppen ApS

Original Score: Kjartan Holm, touring guitarist of Sigur Rós

The film features: Viggo Mortensen, the Danish American actor and friend of Georg Gudni. Bernd Koberling, the one of Germany’s most famous artists and a friend of Georg Gudni. Bente Scavenius, the highly respected Danish Art Historian. Sigrún Jónasdóttir, the widow of the artist. Hannes Sigurdsson, art historian and the author of the book The Mountain – a book about the artist. Einar Garibaldi, artist and a friend of Georg Gudni.

Special thanks: Sigrún Jónasdóttir

Director of Photography & editor: Bergur Bernburg.

Reading of Poems by Georg Gudni: Gyrdir Elíasson. Gyrdir won the prestigious Nordic Council's Literature Prize in 2011.

Post-production: Researchgruppen ApS – Copenhagen, Denmark.

Audio mixer and mastering: Upptekid / Gunnar Árnason

Music Mastering: Sigurdór Gudmundsson

DCP mastering: Bragi Thor Hinriksson

Translation: Ásta Björg Stefánsdóttir

Interviews: Bill Rathje, Ólafur Torfason and Gudbjörg Kristjánsdóttir

Achive footage: Rokk í Reykjavík – a film by Fridrik Thor Fridriksson. Magnus Egler, RUV, 1982.

Photographs: From the personal archive of the artist. Sigrún Jónasdóttir. Viggo Mortensen. Hannes Sigurdsson. Gudmundur Ingólfson

Paintings: Thórarinn B. Thorláksson – Herdubreid. Jón Stefánsson – Eiríksjökull. Courtesy of the National Gallery of Iceland.

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