Arctic Film Festival

Official opening of the Arctic Film Festival (entry on invitation card).

17.00–18.45, Screening Room 3

Last Days of the Arctic / Andlit norðursins (DE/IS 2011, 90 min, dir. Ragnar Axelsson, EN subtitles)

Ragnar Axelsson or RAX as he is commonly referred to, has worked for Morgunbladid, Iceland’s biggest newspaper since 1976. His photographs have featured in LIFE, National Geographic, Le Figaro, Stern La Vanguardia, Time and many other magazines and newspapers. In The Last Days of the Arctic, we join RAX on his journey. We visit his farmers in Iceland and the free-spirited hunters of Greenland. RAX has tirelessly followed the lives of some of these people for the past twenty years. In Greenland we meet people who are so intertwined with nature, that they are more afraid of government officials than of a starving polar bear looking for prey. It can take RAX weeks in the company of his subjects before he earns the right to hear their stories. When he has shown his strength and proven himself worthy, he takes up the camera. His mission is his biggest passion: to document deteriorating lifestyles and bring them to the eyes of the world before it’s too late.

Awards: Icelandic Film and TV awards for “Best documentary” and “Best original score”. Nominated at the Sheffield Documentary Film Festival 2011, Nordisk Panorama 2011, Thessaloniki Film Festival 2011, Bergen International Film Festival 2011 and Nordische Filmtage Lübeck. Soundtrack nominated for “Best Film Music” by the Nordic Countries Council. Distr. by Off the Fence.