THE ORGANIZERS & AUTHORS OF ICELAND NOIR 2021
EVA BJÖRG ÆGISDÓTTIR - ÓSKAR GUÐMUNDSSON - RAGNAR JÓNASSON - YRSA SIGURÐARDÓTTIR
EVA BJÖRG ÆGISDÓTTIR - ÓSKAR GUÐMUNDSSON - RAGNAR JÓNASSON - YRSA SIGURÐARDÓTTIR
Background & info
Iceland Noir was born in 2013 over a curry in one of Reykjavík’s finer Indian restaurants. Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, Ragnar Jónasson and Quentin Bates were idly wondering why Iceland had never had its own crime fiction festival.
The idea gelled and by the time we all met again Crimefest in Bristol a few weeks later, it seemed we had all been thinking much the same thoughts and Iceland Noir was born on the spot.
We asked Ann Cleeves if she’d appear if we were to go ahead with a small crime fiction festival in Reykjavík later that year. To her immense credit, she didn’t hesitate. She didn’t consult her diary or her publicist, but just said ‘yes’ right away, and from that point on there was no turning back. We had six months to organise it all and plenty of people thought we were either wildly over-ambitious or just nuts.
But it all worked out. The first Iceland Noir took place in the Nordic House in Reykjavík in November 2013 as a one-day event. It was a great success, in spite of being a little rough around the edges, and we learned a lot from it – enough to organise an even better event in 2014.
After Iceland Noir 2014, the scene switched to Lerwick, where Shetland Arts borrowed the date for the excellent Shetland Noir festival in November 2015.
In 2014 we also invited Lilja Sigurðardóttir to the organising team and she added some much-needed energy and ideas to the mix. For the 2016 event, we were joined by expat Kiwi and Reykjavík resident Grant Nicol, who then went back home and is now in the process of organizing Rotorua Noir in NZ.
We have had great help in realizing Iceland Noir in the past from some awesomely talented people
including Ulfhildur Dagsdóttir, Markús Már Efraím, Jórunn Jónsdóttir of the All-Iceland travel agency as well as the Reykjavík Unesco City of Literature and Promote Iceland.
Iceland Noir is run mostly without subsidies. This means that it’s funded by those who take part, on the basis that everyone who attends in whatever capacity pays the festival pass fee and we keep the price of this as low as it feasibly can be to cover costs. With the tourist boom in the last years this cost has unfortunately gone up and Reykjavík is now one of the most expensive cities on the planet. We are truly sorry for this but, at the same time we are sure that for crime-fiction aficionados, Iceland Noir is definitely worth it!
Our aim in running it is to have a good time with a bunch of like-minded crime aficionados and to preferably not make a loss, and we’re proud to have achieved those aims and hope to do the same in November 2018 now that plans are in progress for a two-day festival.
In 2018 we welcomed award winning crime author Óskar Guðmundsson to the group and with him a fresh breeze of new ideas. In 2020 another award winning author, Eva Björg Ægisdóttir, replaced Lilja on the team, similarly bringing her own innovative ideas into the planning process. Annoying f$%$-face Covid-19 forced us to delay the 2020 program but we used the time wisely and are now looking forward to throwing a spectacular festival in this otherwise unspectacular year of 2021. Iceland Noir 2021 will take place in two locations. One is the Iðnó theatre by the Reykjavík pond, a beautiful 19th century building in a very typical Reykjavík style, brilliantly located in the heart of downtown. The other is Vinnustofa Kjarvals, a private members club also conveniently located as downtown as it gets, in a building facing parliament square. The walking distance between the two venues is only 4 minutes.
The idea gelled and by the time we all met again Crimefest in Bristol a few weeks later, it seemed we had all been thinking much the same thoughts and Iceland Noir was born on the spot.
We asked Ann Cleeves if she’d appear if we were to go ahead with a small crime fiction festival in Reykjavík later that year. To her immense credit, she didn’t hesitate. She didn’t consult her diary or her publicist, but just said ‘yes’ right away, and from that point on there was no turning back. We had six months to organise it all and plenty of people thought we were either wildly over-ambitious or just nuts.
But it all worked out. The first Iceland Noir took place in the Nordic House in Reykjavík in November 2013 as a one-day event. It was a great success, in spite of being a little rough around the edges, and we learned a lot from it – enough to organise an even better event in 2014.
After Iceland Noir 2014, the scene switched to Lerwick, where Shetland Arts borrowed the date for the excellent Shetland Noir festival in November 2015.
In 2014 we also invited Lilja Sigurðardóttir to the organising team and she added some much-needed energy and ideas to the mix. For the 2016 event, we were joined by expat Kiwi and Reykjavík resident Grant Nicol, who then went back home and is now in the process of organizing Rotorua Noir in NZ.
We have had great help in realizing Iceland Noir in the past from some awesomely talented people
including Ulfhildur Dagsdóttir, Markús Már Efraím, Jórunn Jónsdóttir of the All-Iceland travel agency as well as the Reykjavík Unesco City of Literature and Promote Iceland.
Iceland Noir is run mostly without subsidies. This means that it’s funded by those who take part, on the basis that everyone who attends in whatever capacity pays the festival pass fee and we keep the price of this as low as it feasibly can be to cover costs. With the tourist boom in the last years this cost has unfortunately gone up and Reykjavík is now one of the most expensive cities on the planet. We are truly sorry for this but, at the same time we are sure that for crime-fiction aficionados, Iceland Noir is definitely worth it!
Our aim in running it is to have a good time with a bunch of like-minded crime aficionados and to preferably not make a loss, and we’re proud to have achieved those aims and hope to do the same in November 2018 now that plans are in progress for a two-day festival.
In 2018 we welcomed award winning crime author Óskar Guðmundsson to the group and with him a fresh breeze of new ideas. In 2020 another award winning author, Eva Björg Ægisdóttir, replaced Lilja on the team, similarly bringing her own innovative ideas into the planning process. Annoying f$%$-face Covid-19 forced us to delay the 2020 program but we used the time wisely and are now looking forward to throwing a spectacular festival in this otherwise unspectacular year of 2021. Iceland Noir 2021 will take place in two locations. One is the Iðnó theatre by the Reykjavík pond, a beautiful 19th century building in a very typical Reykjavík style, brilliantly located in the heart of downtown. The other is Vinnustofa Kjarvals, a private members club also conveniently located as downtown as it gets, in a building facing parliament square. The walking distance between the two venues is only 4 minutes.
