DORIS FILM project and the Doris Manifesto adopted to ICELAND
Doris Film Iceland project is an adoption of the Swedish project that began in 1999 and gave birth to nine short films and an educational curriculum in media literacy. Wift in Iceland received a grant from the Ministry of Education to launch the Doris Film project in Iceland. The ministry saw a great opportunity in the project to create an educational curriculum in media literacy while analysing the representation of women in film, something that has been lacking in the Icelandic education system. At the same time the project encourages women to write and take a stand behind and in front of the camera.
Dögg Mósesdóttir is the president of Wift in Iceland and a project manager of Doris film in Iceland. Dögg is a writer and director and the manager and founder of The Northern Wave film festival in Iceland.
Þóra Tómasardóttir is a producer at Doris Film Iceland
and in charge of the Norwegian part of the project.
She is also a filmmaker and journalist.
Like in the rest of the world, the underrepresentation of women in film has been a great problem for the Icelandic film industry where throughout the Icelandic film history, most films represent the male population of the country, with a few exception. The latest proof of this gap is Edda awards in 2013 where the academy could only nominate 3 women vs. 5 men for best acting in a leading role since there were no more leading roles for women that year.
Wift in Iceland launched the Doris film script competition on May 1st ,2014 and received 102 submissions. 11 scripts were selected by a jury composed by Iceland’s most respected film producers, writers and directors. The Doris Film group has monthly meetings and workshops with lectures from professionals with the goal of getting the best out of the scripts. On the 1st of December 2015, five projects were selected to go in to production where Doris Film in Iceland will help find funding, producers and crew for the films in the other Nordic countries.
Wift in Norway has confirmed their participation by providing the project with a Grant to hire a project Manager for a Norwegian collaboration. The films will be shot with a mix of Scandinavian and Icelandic film crews. The first film has already been shot, Rainbow party directed by Eva Sigurðardóttir and the photography was done by the Norwegian D.o.p. Marianne Bakke.
Doris film in Iceland intends to have finished shooting the 5 films by the end of 2016.
Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson is the script consultant of the Doris film finalists. He is one of Icelands most promising young directors/writers with two feature films made, one of them Either way has already been remade in the U.S. under the title “Prince Avalanche” starring Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch.
