Film festivals have struggled with ‘no shows' from film prints and special guests. In the meantime, Icelandic film companies have enjoyed the unexpected surge of activity brought by foreign television crews on location.
Accounts of epic journeys for film and television professionals abounded over the last week. From a few hundred Nordic participants at Cannes' MIP TV who had to rent cars and drive back home, to individuals or entire delegations stranded because of air traffic disruption. Nineteen film professionals - including the Swedish Film Institute's Pia Lundberg and Bengt Toll were stuck for almost a week in New York where the Lincoln Centre's biggest ever US retrospective of Swedish films is taking place. "For us at the SFI international department, this has been very stressful, especially as we're trying to get everything ready for Cannes" said the head of the department Pia Lundberg. Her Norwegian counterpart Stine Oppegaard was equally worried about the upcoming Cannes event, elaborating complicated scenarios about how to better reach the Croisette, by bus or train. "There isn't really anything we can do, but wait for the clouds to move on, wait for the next volcano eruption, or pretend it will never happen again," she said.
Ironically, while the Eyjafjallajoekull volcanic eruption has hurt millions of people and businesses around the world, Icelandic film companies have benefitted from the unexpected business bonanza brought by foreign TV crews, such as Saga Film. "For the duration of the eruption in Eyjafjallajoekull, our service teams and post production department have been busy servicing international news crews reporting from Iceland to the world," said the company's CEO Kjartan Thor Thordarson. "There must be at least 15-20 news crews covering the eruption on location and we expect more to come when flights resume from Europe. We will be keeping our 24 hour production service line open while demand is high and equipment is available."
Sagafilm is also producing two documentaries directly connected to the eruption. One is about the Icelandic Rescue Teams that are involved in all evacuation and cleanup plans after the floods and ashes that have damaged farms around the volcano. The second documentary is about Iceland's most famous photographer Ragnar Axelsson (RAX) and his quest to shoot the perfect image of the eruption."
Laufey Guðjónsdóttir, head of the Icelandic Film Centre also welcomed the surge of activity for local film professionals. However she acknowledged that a prolongation of the Eyjafjallajoekull volcanic eruption would eventually hurt the country's economy and make all public financing even more difficult. "We hope for the best," she said.