A lighthouse keeper prepares for his earthly funeral while trying to reconnect the elf within. Hulda and Trausti have shared a roof on Icelandic shores for over seventy years. Her love of books is matched by his love of stones. When he bursts out singing, she begs him to stop screaming. When he tells her he wants to change his name to "Elf", she warns that his family will abandon him. Now, as Trausti’s hundredth birthday approaches and he senses the hand of death upon him he is on a quest to find the coffin that can carry this elf back to the mysteries beyond.... Meanwhile, Hulda retreats into a world of poetry with the help of an electric magnifying glass. Half Elf is a modern Icelandic fairy-tale where life is celebrated - despite everything, despite ourselves and despite the reality that awaits all of us in the end.
Iceland
Journalist and anthropological filmmaker
He studied creative writing at the University of Iceland and graduated with an MA in Visual and Media Anthropology from Freie Universität, Berlin in 2018. His works include award-winning journalism on the conditions of refugees and asylum-seekers in Iceland, a book of poetry, and a short film on friendship in cyberspace, Even Asteroids Are Not Alone (2018), which was awarded the Royal Anthropological Institute´s (RAI) & Marsh Short Film Prize for ‘the most outstanding short film on social, cultural and biological anthropology or archaeology’ in 2019. Jón Bjarki´s journalistic work has appeared on various international media platforms such as Slate Magazine and the German investigative centre of Correctiv. He is a regular contributor to the Icelandic bi-weekly newspaper Stundin, and does project work for Filmmaking For Fieldwork (F4F™), an educational project offering training in audio-visual research methods, ethnographic and documentary filmmaking. He is the founder of SKAK bíófilm, a small Icelandic production company dedicated to making anthropological and artistic films. Jón Bjarki shares his time between Athens, Berlin and Reykjavík.
– Ethnocineca, International Documentary Film Festival 2020 – Nominated for “the Excellence in Visual Anthropology Award” (Austria)
– Nordisk Panorama Festival 2020 – New Nordic Voices Competition (Sweden)
– Skjaldborg Icelandic Documentary Film Festival 2020 – Jury Prize (Iceland)
– Astra Film Festival 2020 – International Competition (Romania)
– DocLisboa 2020 – Official Selection (Portugal)
– Tromsö International Film Festival 2021 – Film From the North Features (Norway)
– Royal Anthropological Institute RAI Film Festival 2021 – Main Competition (UK, Ireland)
– Icelandic Film & Television Academy Awards 2021 – Nominee Best Documentary (Iceland)
– 16th biannual German International Ethnographic Film Festival 2022 – Manfred Krüger Awards for Excellent Camera Work (Germany)
– 4th Equal Film Fest 2022 – Official Selection (Costa Rica)
