Further Information

Me and my wife Thorbjorg Jónsdóttir are local filmmakers who are spearheading a fund-raising campaign for the restoration of the lost Icelandic 35mm film Sóley or: The Hidden People of the Shadowy Rocks written and directed by the legendary fine artist Róska and her partner Manrico Pavelottino.

My wife Thorbjorg is the niece of Róska who passed away unexpectedly in 1996 at the young age of 56. We have both been given permission by Roska’s son (who holds the rights to “Sóley”) to oversee the restoration process of this groundbreaking film. Róska was a radical figure in Iceland who forged her own path through the male-dominated art scene of the 60s and was one of the founding members of Nýlistasafnið. She studied art and film in Iceland, Prague, and Rome in the late 60’s, where she met her second husband, Manrico Pavolettoni. In 1982 they collaborated on this art-house film which some have described as Lord of The Rings meets Gummo. Although Róska and Manrico directed a few shorts and documentaries, this is one of the few feature length films directed by a woman at the time.

The only remaining copy of the film is a 35mm print, guarded at the Icelandic Film Museum. The negative to the film is lost, but ideally when a film is restored the original negative is scanned digitally and the restoration done on the copy, as that is how one gets the highest quality scan. As the negative has been lost, in this case we will scan the 35mm print and do digital restoration off of that. The Icelandic Film Museum is collaborating with us on this restoration project, and they have agreed to take care of scanning the film in high quality 5.1K film scanner. We are now looking for funds to pay for a professional visual effects artist in Los Angeles to oversee the digital restoration of the picture. As mentioned before, the print itself is in rather poor condition and there is much labor oriented work that needs to be done in order to recreate Roska’s original cinematic vision.

The story of Sóley is about freedom and oppression. Set in Iceland in the eighteenth-century, it relates the adventures of a young farmer named Thor, who goes in search of his lost horses, that he owes as tax to the Danish church. His journey leads him into the uninhabited interior of the country; the outlaw lands. Here he encounters legendary figures of folk tradition, most importantly the elf-maiden Sóley, who accompanies him on his way across the highlands. She is the incarnation of dreams woven by the poor farmers of Iceland, poverty stricken and oppressed by the church. The film culminates in a dynamic scene in which an army of elves -wielding torches on horseback - emerge from their hidden homes to overtake the church and throw a party among the pews during the sermon.

When Róska was asked about the film, she said it is about “dream and reality meeting up and going on a journey together”.