From 24 September to 4 October, Iceland’s capital becomes a meeting point for independent cinema, emerging filmmakers and established international names, as the Reykjavík International Film Festival returns for its 23rd edition with the Golden Puffin competition, a major Icelandic presence, films from across the Arctic and Alexander Skarsgård among its headline guests.
Eleven days of cinema in Reykjavík
Autumn in Reykjavík has its own rhythm. The endless daylight of the Icelandic summer has disappeared, evenings are growing longer and cultural life is moving indoors — an ideal setting for the return of the Reykjavík International Film Festival (RIFF). From 24 September to 4 October 2026, Iceland’s largest film festival celebrates its 23rd edition with eleven days of independent cinema, documentaries, Icelandic filmmaking, Nordic and Arctic stories, talks, masterclasses and unconventional screenings. RIFF describes its mission as promoting independent filmmaking and film literacy while giving particular visibility to young and emerging filmmakers, with first and second features competing in its flagship New Visions section.
The Last First: Winter K2 opens the festival
RIFF 2026 opens at Háskólabíó on 24 September with Amir Bar-Lev’s documentary The Last First: Winter K2, bringing an intensely Icelandic story to the centre of an international programme. The film tells the story of the fatal 2021 winter attempt on K2 involving Icelandic mountaineer John Snorri Sigurjónsson, placing a story of ambition, endurance and loss at the beginning of eleven days of cinema in Reykjavík. Its selection gives the festival an appropriately strong connection between Iceland and the wider world: a local figure, one of the planet’s most formidable mountains and a story whose significance extends well beyond mountaineering.
New Visions and the Golden Puffin
At the heart of RIFF remains New Visions, the competition devoted to directors presenting their first or second feature. Nine films compete in 2026 for the Golden Puffin, RIFF’s principal award, with the winner due to be announced at the festival’s closing awards ceremony at the Nordic House on 3 October. Among the contenders are Jacqueline Lentzou’s A Day in the Life of Jo: Chapter Phaedra, Jack Auen and Kevin Walker’s Chronovisor and Alex Schulman’s Swedish Adult Supervision. The competition encapsulates one of RIFF’s defining principles: established filmmakers may provide some of its biggest events, but Reykjavík is also intended as a place to encounter directors at the beginning of their international careers.
Sweden takes a prominent place
The Nordic presence is particularly visible through Sweden. Alex Schulman’s Adult Supervision follows three fathers accompanying their daughters on a school excursion to a remote island, where memories and unresolved tensions begin undermining the adults’ apparent control. RIFF identifies the film as Sweden’s Academy Awards entry, while Gustav Skarsgård appears in one of its leading roles. That creates an intriguing family connection within the festival itself, because his brother Alexander is one of RIFF 2026’s major guests of honour. From contemporary Swedish filmmaking to one of the country’s most internationally recognisable acting families, Sweden consequently occupies a conspicuous place in this year’s Reykjavík programme.
From Stockholm to Reykjavík: Alexander Skarsgård brings Wicker north
Born in Stockholm, Alexander Skarsgård comes to Reykjavík for the Nordic premiere of Wicker at Háskólabíó on 29 September at 19:00. Skarsgård will attend the screening, address the audience and receive the RIFF 2026 Honorary Award for Outstanding Artistic Achievement. His presence provides one of the clearest connections between the international profile of the festival and its Nordic identity: an actor who began his career in Sweden before moving into major international productions returning north for the regional premiere of his latest film.
Icelandic stories take centre stage
The domestic presence is particularly extensive this year. RIFF has announced three separate Icelandic short-film programmes, bringing together established creators, students and new voices while presenting different perspectives on Icelandic society, landscapes and contemporary life. Titles range from Teitur Magnússon’s The Actress and Hjörtur Jóhann Jónsson’s Talus to Staycation by Annalísa Hermannsdóttir and student productions including Hekla, Talk of the Town and Swallow Me Home. Together, the programmes make RIFF an unusually concentrated opportunity for international audiences to encounter Iceland through its own filmmakers rather than exclusively through the spectacular landscapes for which the country is known around the world. Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, the acclaimed Icelandic editor and producer behind some of Hollywood’s most kinetic films (John Wick, Deadpool 2) steps unexpectedly in front of the camera in Janaé Rachel Ballot’s deeply personal debut feature Dissociated Me, which will receive its world premiere at the Reykjavík International Film Festival.
Iceland on screen and beyond the cinema
That dialogue between cinema and landscape is especially compelling in Iceland, where locations familiar from international travel imagery acquire very different meanings when interpreted by Icelandic filmmakers. Visitors who know the country through journeys along the South Coast and Vík, across the Golden Circle or towards the immense ice landscapes of Vatnajökull encounter another Iceland at RIFF: urban, creative, contemporary and interested in telling its own stories. The festival’s three Icelandic short-film selections explicitly set out to offer different perspectives on Icelandic society, landscapes and stories while showcasing new voices in domestic filmmaking.
From Norway and Tromsø to Reykjavík: cinema from the Arctic
For ATN readers, RIFF’s relationship with the wider northern world is particularly significant. The festival’s engagement with Arctic cinema creates a natural cultural axis between Iceland and Norway, with Tromsø occupying a special place in the Nordic film-festival landscape. Reykjavík and Tromsø share something more profound than northern latitude: both cities function as relatively small cultural centres capable of connecting local and regional stories with an international audience. That makes the route from Tromsø and Arctic Norway to Reykjavík an especially natural one for cinema concerned with northern landscapes, communities, identities and the rapidly changing Arctic.
The wider Nordic screen
RIFF’s Nordic identity is therefore not limited to films made in Iceland. Sweden enters the programme through Adult Supervision and the Skarsgård presence; Norway and Tromsø provide an important connection to the Arctic film world; and the festival’s broader Nordic context places Reykjavík inside a network of relatively small capitals and cultural centres that regularly exchange filmmakers, stories and audiences. RIFF’s location is crucial to that identity: Reykjavík is European and Nordic, but it also faces directly towards the North Atlantic and the Arctic, allowing the festival to occupy a cultural space that is difficult to replicate farther south.
From Christiania to Copenhagen
The Nordic perspective also extends towards Denmark. Cinema dealing with Christiania, Copenhagen’s internationally known alternative community, provides an especially appropriate counterpart to RIFF’s interest in distinctive communities and ways of living. The journey from Copenhagen to Reykjavík is also emblematic of the festival’s wider Nordic reach: Danish urban culture, Swedish filmmaking, Norwegian and Arctic connections and Icelandic stories can coexist within the same programme without turning “Nordic cinema” into a single aesthetic category. Instead, RIFF offers a meeting point for the very different societies, landscapes and creative traditions found across the Nordic region.
Cinema beyond the conventional screen
RIFF’s identity has never been confined to ordinary screenings. The official 2026 programme includes a series of events designed to transform familiar films into communal experiences: a Twin Peaks and Wild at Heart double feature on 25 September, a Pyjama Party built around Paddington on 27 September, a Lit Flick presentation of Pride and Prejudice on 28 September and a Burger Party accompanying Pulp Fiction on 2 October. These events help distinguish RIFF from a festival built exclusively around premieres and competition titles: cinema becomes a social event, with familiar works rediscovered through a new setting and a Reykjavík audience.
Behind the camera
RIFF also looks directly at filmmaking itself. Among the major professional events is The Art of Taking Action, bringing together director David Leitch, producer Kelly McCormick and Icelandic editor Elísabet Ronalds for a masterclass. Alongside its wider industry and educational activities, such events give the eleven days a second identity: RIFF is simultaneously a festival for audiences and a meeting place for people who make films. This emphasis on emerging creators runs throughout the festival, from New Visions and its first- and second-feature directors to the extensive programme devoted to young Icelandic filmmakers.
When Reykjavík’s nights return
The timing of RIFF is part of its appeal. By late September the extraordinary daylight of the Icelandic summer has retreated and darkness has returned to the island, making the festival itself feel naturally connected to the season. For travellers, days exploring Reykjavík or heading into the landscapes of the Golden Circle can give way to evenings inside Háskólabíó, while the return of genuinely dark nights also marks the beginning of the period when a Northern Lights experience once again becomes possible. RIFF consequently arrives at a distinctive moment in Iceland’s year: after the endless light and peak visitor season of summer, but before the deepest darkness of winter.
Reykjavík becomes a cinema city
That combination ultimately explains RIFF’s particular character. It is international without losing its Icelandic identity, Nordic without treating the Nordic countries as interchangeable, and northern without isolating itself from the broader international film circuit. From an Icelandic story opening the festival to new voices competing for the Golden Puffin, from Swedish cinema and Alexander Skarsgård’s journey from Stockholm to Reykjavík, to the cultural axis connecting Norway, Tromsø and the North Atlantic,
RIFF – Reykjavík International Film Festival
24 September–4 October 2026
Reykjavík, Iceland
Suggested Online Sources
Reykjavík International Film Festival – official website · RIFF – New Visions and the Golden Puffin · RIFF – Alexander Skarsgård, Guest of Honour · RIFF – Icelandic Stories at RIFF 2026 · RIFF – 2026 special events
