The first annual Icelandic Chess Day was celebrated around the country for the first time on Thursday. It is held in honor of Iceland’s first grand master Friðrik Ólafsson, who celebrated his 77th birthday on January 26.  more

Icelandic film Á annan veg (Either Way) is one of eight films nominated for this year’s Dragon, the Nordic countries’ most important film award.  more

A man was arrested after attacking three men with a bludgeon in the street last night in Reykjanesbær in the Suðurnes region in southwest Iceland. The victims were treated by the Suðurnes Health Institution.  more

The annual French Film Festival kicks off in Reykjavík today and will run through February 9. It is a popular event on the Icelandic cultural calendar; the number of visitors amounts to 10,000 each year.  more

Eiríkur Ingi Jóhannsson, the only member of the four-person crew of Hallgrímur SI-77 who survived when the trawler sank off Norway on Wednesday, spent almost four hours in the cold and heavy seas before he was rescued.  more

The main highways leading out of Reykjavík to the south, Hellisheiði, Þrengsli and Reykjanesbraut, which were closed due to a blizzard yesterday, were reopened this morning, only for Hellisheiði to close again shortly before 10 am. The Icelandic Meteorological Office is assuming rising temperatures and rain.  more

The authors Guðrún Eva Mínervudóttir and Páll Björnsson were presented with the Icelandic Literature Awards at a celebratory ceremony at the presidential residence Bessastaðir on Wednesday.  more

The Greenlandic horror film Qaqqat Alanngui (“The Shadows in the Mountains”; 2011), directed by Malik Kleist and shot by Icelandic cameraman Freyr Líndal Sævarsson, will premiere in Iceland in Bíó Paradís in Reykjavík on Friday.  more

The following pictures were taken by IR photographer Páll Kjartansson in Reykjavík yesterday, in the calm in between snowstorms. With snow covering branches of trees, the alley in the Reykjavík Botanic Garden appeared like a loosely-woven roof of white yarn.  more

The current issue of the quarterly magazine Iceland Review includes for example an interview with world-renowned fashion designer Steinunn Sigurðardóttir as well as features on the successful biotech company ORF Genetics and the hot debate regarding the EU. If you subscribe now, you will receive a photo book by IR editor, photographer Páll Stefánsson of the eruptions in Eyjafjallajökull as a gift. Click here to subscribe to the magazine and here to buy a gift subscription.  more